


Soldiers and Fools

by alittlepieceofgundamwing_archivist



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Getting to Know Each Other, Lemon, Light Angst, M/M, Multiple Endings, Yaoi, by LoneWolf, when you're both gundam pilots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-28
Updated: 2013-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-25 08:06:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 35,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13829994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alittlepieceofgundamwing_archivist/pseuds/alittlepieceofgundamwing_archivist
Summary: by LoneWolf--(Sometimes soldiers and fools meet. Sometimes they annoy the living booger-snot out of each other.)





	1. Preface

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Dacia, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [A Little Piece of Gundam Wing](https://fanlore.org/wiki/A_Little_Piece_Of_Gundam_Wing), which closed in 2017. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after July 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [a little piece of gundam wing collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/alittlepieceofgundamwing/profile).

This is the first GW story I started -- what I call the "mythos" piece that defines a lot of the ideas and devices that work their way into other stories. If you've read some of my other work, you'll probably see a few familiar things. They were here first.

This is also one of /those/ stories. You know. They start off as cute, fluffy little things and !!WHOMP!! next thing you know you're being dragged around the countryside by an Irish Wolfhound. It started out as a small exploration (fit on the front and back of a piece of steno paper) of the Heero/Duo relationship that wasn't even going to aspire to shonen ai-ness. They were just gonna be friends, I swear. (That ended up as parts 09-11.)

I don't know why I like Spandex Boy and the Loud-Mouthed Fool and don't really give a rodent's posterior about any of the other characters. Maybe it's because they're similar to some (unrelated) characters I've written before, or maybe I identify with them. Dunno. How bad is this fixation, you ask? Count how many other characters get more than a couple of lines in this story. (Even Duo wouldn't need fingers. Of course, my Duo is pretty bright.) And please, please, please don't ask me how Yeats made it into this. That's when I realized I'd created a monster.

WARNINGS: Don't let the beginning fool you. Things get more serious as the relationship develops. No death because I'm a hopeless romantic. Duo is attracted to Heero throughout the story, but nothing comes of it until the endings.

Which brings me to, two endings. The first ending is spring water (barely shonen ai at its strongest, IMO). The second is a club soda (borrows heavily from the first ending with yaoi fizz added) followed by a Corona with a thin slice of lime and finally a big glass of lemon Schnapps (with a few drops of "plot" to connect it to the rest of the story). The second ending is in three parts so you can choose, uh, how far you want to go, but if you can't take the mild lime, I suggest you stick with the first ending. It has better closure than the club soda alone.

Finally, don't let my little comments in front of each section lead you into assumptions about who is a soldier and who is a fool. The terms apply equally well to either player.

I hope you enjoy this puppy turned, hmm, I hope it isn't a dog. And hopefully, everything stays close to character -- but (as I had to remind myself) characters develop and mature, and by the end we're way past Eternal Waltz.

DISCLAIMERS, etc. : (a) I am trying to stay reasonably close to the official timeline for most of the story. Yeah, I've bent it in a few places to make room for the developing relationship. I think the only major twists are Heero and Duo are roommates at school for a while, Duo joined the Preventers after EW and the Preventers are more than just an "intelligence agency". (b) Japanese? Hahahahaha! Everything you see is lifted from others or from books. If I have it wrong, tell me (and tell me the right way to say it).


	2. Part 01- Opening Doors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> by LoneWolf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note from Dacia, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [A Little Piece of Gundam Wing](https://fanlore.org/wiki/A_Little_Piece_Of_Gundam_Wing), which closed in 2017. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after July 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [a little piece of gundam wing collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/alittlepieceofgundamwing/profile).

(Sometimes soldiers and fools meet. Sometimes they annoy the living booger-snot out of each other.)   
  
Heero opened the door.   
  
"Heero Yuy, this is Duo Maxwell, your new roomate." The school's director waved the black-clad, braided boy into the room.   
  
"o-HI-o, HEEEE-row-SAN." Duo dropped his duffel bags onto the floor with a loud thump and tired to grab a hand to shake. _Wait a minute. Did he say_ Heero _Yuy..._ Violet eyes went wide as they spotted black spandex and a green tank top. _Ohshit._  
  
"Hn." Heero nodded once, hands sliding behind his back. "Welcome." The ice in his voice belied the word.   
  
The director patted a handkerchief to his sweating forehead. "Uh, Yuy, Maxwell is an exchange student from America. I'm sure you two will get along just fine." He didn't sound at all convinced, but he ducked out of the room and closed the door anyway, walking a little too quickly back to his office. Yuy had been at the school for only two days and, though the director would never admit it, he was afraid of the boy. He never would have put the poor gaijin -- exchange student -- in with him if he'd had another room available, but... Well, he didn't think Yuy was crazy enough to actually kill the American.   
  
Heero's thin pretense of civility faded with the director's footsteps. "What are you doing here, baka?"   
  
"And a good day to you too, HEEE-row YEW -- eep." Duo's hands flew up beside his head as he found himself nose to muzzle with Heero's gun.   
  
_Damn your mouth, Duo. Where does he keep that in those spandex pants? And does he carry it to the shower?_  
  
"Ah. Look. Um. I'm sorry I shot you the first time I saw you, but it really looked like you were going to kill that girl. And, um, I did rescue you from that hospital and then gave you a place to stay after you broke your leg and even saved your life after you tore Deathscythe apart for parts and--"   
  
"Shut up." The gaijin baka's voice had been rising steadily in pitch and volume. It grated on Heero's nerves, and was getting dangerously loud. There were people in some of the rooms around them.   
  
"Uh. Right. Yeah. Uh-- ulp," as Heero thumbed back the hammer on the gun.   
  
The silence convinced him that he had the loud-mouthed fool's attention. "My name is Heero Yuy. Don't say it like a gaijin. What are you doing here, baka?"   
_  
So, you're not quite as cold as you pretend. You can get angry. Good. This would be a boring assignment if you really were the ice-man._  
  
Gingerly, Duo laid a finger on the gun and pushed it to one side. "Um. Orders?" He breathed as Heero allowed him to move the gun away. "My control sent me. He said I'd be roomed with a contact who I'd be, uh, working with for a while. I didn't know it was you. Honest. Ah, you should be getting instructions soon."   
  
Heero turned, holstering the gun as he walked over to the computer.   
_  
Ahhhh,_ Duo nodded. _Butt-holster. That may come in handy sometime. Hmm. He's got a nice butt for it too._  
  
"They came yesterday. I hacked the computer to get you into this school." He sat down and turned the computer's monitor on, studying the building plans on the screen.   
  
"Oh, good... Hey!! Then why did you just put me through Hell with that gun, you bastard?"   
  
"I needed to know how you react under pressure." The slight frown reflected in the screen told Duo that Heero hadn't been impressed. "If you don't shut up, you're going to have to kill everyone in the rooms around us."   
  
Duo considered half a dozen snappy replies, then realized Heero meant it. "Aaanyway," he said, surveying the room, "we're roommates, partners, comrades in arms, best buds ... Oh, dibs on the top bunk."   
  
Heero turned to face him, hooking an arm over the back of the chair. Duo saw something in those cold, blue eyes that made him more nervous than any gun, but he held his ground this time.   
  
"The top bunk is mine."   
  
_Shoulda known,_ Duo thought. _Tactical advantage._  
  
"That dresser and closet," he pointed, "are mine. Yours are over there. This side of the desk--"   
  
_Facing the door, of course._  
  
"is mine. I don't want a partner. I'm following orders. If you mess with my stuff, I'll kill you. If you become a liability, I'll kill you. If you get in my way, I'll--"   
  
Duo raised his hands in surrender. "Yeah, yeah. You'll kill me. Lighten up, Heero. You're gonna have a heart attack and die before you're twenty."   
  
"What makes you think either of us will live that long?"   
  
The words came in the same steady monotone as the threats, but watching him for a moment, Duo knew it was the first thing Heero had said that he might really believe. He frowned. The scary thing was, he was right. There was no reason to believe either of them would live that long. _Damn, you're depressing, Heero. I thought maybe you were just mad at me before, but this is how you really are._  
  
"Why don't we try again?" Duo said aloud. "Ohayo, Heero Yuy," he was careful to pronounce the Japanese properly this time, though it disappointed him. He'd spent days perfecting the bad accent. "My name is Duo Maxwell, but my enemies call me Shinigami. I've been assigned to work with you. I'll take the bottom bunk." He held out his right hand.   
  
Heero studied him for a moment. _Shinigami indeed. At least he's dropped the fake gaijin accent._ His head inclined forward ever so slightly. "The bottom bunk is yours, Maxwell."   
  
"Duo."   
  
Heero shrugged and turned back to the computer. He saw Duo's reflection in the screen. Something about the stance wasn't right. "Hn. What?" No response. _I really am going to have to kill him_ , Heero thought, turning.   
  
To find Duo's gun aimed dead between his eyes.   
  
It was just out of his reach, but still close enough to be point blank. Heero stared impassively up the barrel, feeling his own gun pressed against him by the back of the chair, unreachable. A bullet was chambered... with a red tip? Explosive. This gaijin wasn't just a loud-mouthed idiot, he was crazy. The safety was off and the double-handed grip was excellent form. His stance was loose. He would have no trouble tracking if Heero tried to dive away. The kickback would deflect the bullet about a centimeter above the middle of Heero's forehead. Heero looked at the musculature of his forearms. No, he was stronger than that. If his shoulders were equally strong, it would be lower. Center of the forehead. Lethal even without the tiny explosion. He'd seen the smirk and the dark glitter in those violet eyes when Duo shot him at the docks.   
  
_I'm not afraid of death, he thought. I've been waiting for it ever since I got to Earth. But not at the hands of this idiot._  
  
"That butt holster's handy, except when you're sitting on it," Duo said. "You didn't assign the computer when you were divvying up the room just now."   
_  
Maybe he's just crazy enough. He did get the drop on me. Twice. And he did identify a weakness quickly._ "We'll share the computer too... Shinigami."   
  
"Duo," he said, smiling again. He flicked the safety on. The gun twirled on his finger and vanished so quickly Heero barely saw it slide into a baggy pants-pocket with a faint click. "I'm only Shinigami to my enemies."   
  
The soldier made notes. _Good hands. Must have a holster in there. A small magnetic plate would make the most sense. Quick out, quick in. Nothing to catch the gun on. Maybe there's more to this boy than I suspected. Maybe he's less of a liability that I thought._  
  
"Explosive tip?" _Are you really that crazy?_  
  
"Only one way you can know for sure." The gun was before him again, butt first.   
  
Heero took it, sighted on the boy's chest, slowly squeezing the trigger. Duo didn't blink, just stared that deadly stare. Heero stopped a millimeter before the trigger broke. "A blank." He returned the gun.   
  
Duo shook his head, ejecting the bullet and tossing it to him. "Explosive tip. Keep it."   
  
_Very crazy,_ Heero decided as he caught the bullet.   
  
He turned back to the computer, watching Duo out of the corner of his eye as the boy dumped his duffel bags on the bed and gadded about the room putting things away. He could see his life was about to become a thousand times more difficult, but orders were orders. His eyebrows raised slightly as he saw Duo dragging an armload of bottles over to the sink.   
  
"Eeeewwww! Heero, I can't believe you use this. It's _real_ poo, not _sham_ poo. No wonder your hair's such a mess all the time. Um, here," he waved a bottle, somehow sensing that Heero had been watching him. "This is the best stuff. It'll soften your hair and give it body and make it nice and shiny." He grinned, flipping his braid in Heero's direction. "Just like mine. Oh, and this comb. Gotta go. Entirely the wrong comb for your hair. Keep using that and you'll yank it all out by the time... you're... uh..." He trailed off as their eyes met. Heero's question echoing in his mind. _What makes you think either of us will live that long?_  
  
"Well, um, I'll just leave your stuff alone," subdued. Then the grin again. "But you really ought to try my shampoo."   
  
Heero ignored the prattling this time, giving his full attention to the plans in front of him. He'd only been here a couple of days himself and was still memorizing the building's convoluted maintenance corridors.


	3. Part 02 - First Steps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> by LoneWolf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note from Dacia, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [A Little Piece of Gundam Wing](https://fanlore.org/wiki/A_Little_Piece_Of_Gundam_Wing), which closed in 2017. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after July 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [a little piece of gundam wing collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/alittlepieceofgundamwing/profile).

(Sometimes simple changes are the hardest to make. Sometimes fools are right.)   
    
Heero walked into the room and found Duo sprawled on the bottom bunk wearing only a pair of red silk boxers and headphones. One hand played with his braid, the other intermittently fed his mouth popcorn and turned the pages of a book that had too many pictures to be a textbook.   
  
"Mmph. Iwa, Eewo." Duo mumbled around a mouthful of popcorn. He picked up a glass of water from beside the bed and took a gulp, downing the mass, then pulled off the headphones. Heero heard a soft, lilting soprano, "Casadh bean si domh thios..."   
  
"Um, I need a hand with pre-calc when you get a minute."   
  
Duo's voice broke the music's spell. Heero glared. "After I get a shower." _If you need help with pre-calc, what are you doing reading that book instead of the pre-calc book?_ He knew saying it would be a waste of breath. His hand stopped as it reached for the shampoo. "Hnn. What did you do with my shampoo, baka?"   
  
"I told you yesterday, it's real poo. Uh, the bottle's right there in front of you. Why do you think I messed with your stuff?"   
  
The face was utter innocence, but Heero knew better. "Because you didn't put it back where I left it."   
  
"I did too!" Duo tried his best to return Heero's glare, then grinned sheepishly as he heard what he'd said. "Ahm... I thought I did anyway. ... I emptied the bottle and put some of my shampoo in it, OK? Try it. ... Trust me. ..." He wasn't making any headway. "If you try it and don't like it, you can kill me. Or worse yet, I switch to your shampoo." Duo's shudder was half-fake, but Heero put the bottle in the pouch anyway, gathered towel and wash-cloth, and headed for the door.   
  
"If this is a trick, Duo, I will cut your hair off. All of it." The door closed just too hard to be normal, but not quite hard enough to qualify as a slam.   
_  
Geez_ , Duo thought as he slipped on the headphones again, _didn't realize he'd be so mad about it. I'm only trying to help._ He toyed with the end of his beloved braid, contemplating life without it. _Heero does know how to deliver threats so you know they're promises,_ he thought, then shrugged. _He'll thank me... no, scratch that. He won't thank me, but he won't be able to deny that I was right when he tries it. Gotta work on that innocent look, though. Or maybe I need to try a different tack with him._ Duo considered that for a moment. _Damn! He made me miss the last verse of "Ta Me 'Mo Shui"._ He hit the stop button and pulled off the headphones, then reached under his pillow and pulled out a comb, dashed over to the sink and replaced Heero's comb.   
  
On the way back to his bed, he stopped at Heero's dresser. He spent ten minutes studying the middle drawer, it's precise alignment with the grain on the facing, looking for hairs or strings or anything that might tell Heero he'd opened it. He inched the drawer open and peeked, shaking his head. _Spandex Boy indeed._ It was full of black spandex shorts and green tank tops -- enough for at least two weeks by Duo's estimate. _How original,_ he thought. He slid the drawer closed, that bit of curiosity satisfied, taking another four minutes to align it just as it had been, then raced back to his bed.   
  
Forty-five seconds later the door opened.   
  
_Right on schedule._  
  
It closed with a definite slam.   
  
_Ohshit._ Duo kept his nose buried in the issue of "Akira" before him as Heero stomped over to the sink, paused, then stomped over to Duo and stood there.   
  
A faint scent of cordite drifted off his body, even though Duo knew he hadn't been near the stuff for days. Most people wouldn't pick it up, but Duo knew the smell too well. _Maybe he uses cordite scented soap._ Violet eyes drifted up the towel wrapped around Heero's waist, along his torso. _Damn. I gotta figure out what his workout program is._ Finally meeting the face, so cold it could freeze air solid ... and spying the comb Heero was holding before him as if it were a hammer he was going to use to beat Duo's face.   
  
"Oh, get off it, Heero. Just try it. If it isn't better you can cut my hair off and have the old one back. Was I wrong about the shampoo?" Duo waggled the end of his braid in Heero's direction, daring him to say, "Yes."   
    
He hadn't been wrong. That only made Heero angrier. The little fool had been right about something. Of course, if he knew about anything it would be a useless thing like hair.  How could Duo get to him so easily? Maybe it was because the boy was willing to outright defy him. Or maybe because he made Heero wonder if he was wrong about the importance of unfeeling. No. Duo's skills may be good enough, but Heero knew his were better because they weren't clouded by emotion. He stalked back to the sink to comb his hair. After a few pulls, he admitted to himself that this comb didn't catch the way the other one did -- that he hadn't even realized the other comb had been catching.   
  
_So many pale scars on that pale skin._ Duo watched the smooth motion as the muscles in Heero's back flexed and released, flexed and released. The new comb worked as expected. "Damn. I gotta figure out what his workout program is." Duo clapped a hand to his mouth as he realized he had whispered that aloud. Heero didn't stop combing his hair. Maybe Heero hadn't heard him.   
  
Heero finished, put the comb down, and turned. Though his hair was still the same wild Yuy tangle, Duo could see the improvement. Of course, he was an expert when it came to hair. "You need to work on lower body strength," Heero said. "Your upper body is OK if you'll maintain it."   
_  
Damn! He must have ears like a surveillance mike._  
    
"Why, Heero, I didn't know you'd been checking out my body," his mouth said. Duo's face went red. _Damn your mouth, Duo._ He'd grown up on the streets and had learned to appreciate a good body, male or female -- and Heero had a very good body. But if Heero misinterpreted his meaning... He wanted Heero's respect, badly. He didn't want to risk that just because Heero was a looker. Both thoughts surprised him, but before he could explore them further he saw Heero's blank expression.   
  
Heero didn't get it.   
  
Duo grimaced. _What good is it being a brilliant smart-ass when your roommate is so dull? Then again, he hadn't wanted Heero to get it. Better count your blessings, Duo,_ he chided himself.   
  
"I've been evaluating your weaknesses. My control ordered me to reduce the chances you would become an obstacle."   
  
_That you'll have to kill me._  
  
"Tomorrow morning, weight room, 0600."   
  
"6:00 AM?! Does it have to be that early?" Duo blinked, realizing what Heero was offering. "You're gonna help me?"   
  
"Orders," Heero said. He took off the towel and folded it neatly, laying it on top of the dresser. Then he dug a pair of white cotton briefs out of the top drawer and pulled them on followed by the ubiquitous spandex shorts and green tank top. He pulled the holstered pistol out of his school jacket, checked it, slipped it into the waistband at the small of his back and flipped the tail of the tank top over it to conceal it. Long habit made the whole operation take mere seconds.   
  
Duo watched the proceedings thoughtfully. _So he doesn't take it to the shower._ He looked over his shoulder at his own backside. _Maybe I'll be able to wear a butt holster too,_ he thought. _But not if I have to wear those corny briefs._ He shook his head and chuckled softly, then saw Heero looking at him. "Ah, about pre-calc..."   
  
(Two days later...)   
  
Duo heard the door open behind him. _Ohshit. I'd hoped to be done before he got back. Well, here goes._ He didn't stop putting clothes in Heero's dresser, but his attention was focused on the sounds as Heero shut the door and walked across the room. Duo heard the books thump onto the desk.   
  
"I told you not to mess with my stuff or I'd kill you. I meant it." The quiet voice came from directly behind him.   
  
"I know," Duo said turning around. He had expected to face the gun, but Heero's hands were empty -- twitching, but empty. Duo decided that if Heero had been a normal person they'd be clenching and releasing. He looked into the freezing eyes. Heero was angry and wasn't trying to hide it. _I am in sooooo deep..._ "Um, I was just putting your clothes away." Duo kept his voice calm. Heero was still seething -- that's what Duo knew it was, though anyone watching them would have thought they were just having a quiet conversation.   
  
"Duo--"   
  
"I needed to do laundry and did yours too. It's, uh, more efficient." _Ha! Got you there._ "It saves time, water and detergent." _Tell me I'm wrong._ He'd kept the note of triumph out of his voice -- he hoped.   
  
Heero closed his eyes. "Duo, why do you try to make my life miserable?"   
  
He hadn't been ready for that. It was almost an admission of weakness. But Duo knew the answer -- he'd figured it out himself only recently. He thought for a moment, choosing precisely the right words, preparing his voice to be just the right soft tone. "I'm not trying to make your life miserable. I just want you to give me a chance."   
  
Heero half-opened his eyes, looking at him.   
  
"I mean, I didn't choose this assignment. When I walked through that door and realized who I was partnered with, well, I was scared to death -- the gun in my face didn't help. I respect you. You're a good soldier. I'm trying to be one too, so what you think about me matters to me. I know you think I'm just a loud-mouthed amerika-jin baka who couldn't find his way out of an open closet, but maybe you should give me a chance before you write me off. I did save your life."   
  
"That debt was repayed."   
  
The way he said it, that obnoxious tone that said it was just another tick-mark on the mission list, was too much. "Damn it, Heero," Duo snapped at him. "Quit being such an asshole for a minute and tell the truth. Did I save your life?"   
  
Heero saw a hint of the darkness in Duo's eyes. It wouldn't hurt to tell the truth. "Hai."   
  
"Am I a good pilot?"   
  
"Hai."   
  
"Have I been an obstacle?"   
  
Heero thought for a moment. "Iie."   
  
_Damn, I'm actually winning this argument._ "Uh, is me doing your laundry going to kill you?"   
  
"Hn. Iie." That had been harder to say than he had expected.   
  
"And it's more efficient than each of us doing laundry separately?"   
  
"Hai."   
  
"Then why shouldn't I do your laundry if I want?"   
  
Heero didn't know. Maybe it was time to try a different attack. "What if I want to do the laundry next time?"   
  
"Oh, no. All my underwear is silk. I can just see you putting them in the dryer on high and ruining them. Some of my other clothes need special treatment too. I'll do the laundry, thanks."   
  
Heero looked at Duo with an ice-glare cold enough to freeze the boy where he stood. He really didn't want to wash Duo's clothes. He knew he could handle it if he wanted to, but he didn't really like doing his own laundry, much less Duo's. It just rubbed him wrong to give in to the boy -- and letting him have access to the dresser.   
  
The soldier didn't like it. It was risky. _You should get rid of it,_ the soldier whispered in his mind. _NO!_ He didn't know why, but he would not give up... that. He would die first.   
  
The soldier laughed at him. _So much for your self-control._  
  
Eventually, they found a compromise. He pulled the soldier close again. He needed him for this.   
  
"You can do the laundry. You can put my clothes away. But, Duo," he paused, catching Duo's eyes, making certain he had Duo's attention. "The bottom drawer is off limits. If you open it I will know and I will kill you. That is a promise. If you don't find a place for it in the other drawers or the closet, leave it on top of the dresser and I will put it away."   
  
Duo didn't flinch from the stare though he knew Heero was deadly serious. "Ryoukai." He held up his right hand. "I give you my word I will not open the bottom drawer without your permission." He bent from the waist in a small, but respectful bow then turned back to putting away clothes.   
  
Heero walked over to the desk and sat down, opening a book.   
  
"And thanks," Duo said softly to the dresser. The pages of Heero's book stopped turning for just a second. There was no other sign his words had reached Heero's ears. _That's OK,_ he thought. You just got him to take a tiny step towards, well, "friendship" is probably too optimistic, maybe "comradeship". It was a beginning. _And I'll be interested to see if he wears those boxers I slipped into his underwear drawer._


	4. Part 03 - Fanning the Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> by LoneWolf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note from Dacia, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [A Little Piece of Gundam Wing](https://fanlore.org/wiki/A_Little_Piece_Of_Gundam_Wing), which closed in 2017. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after July 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [a little piece of gundam wing collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/alittlepieceofgundamwing/profile).

(Sometimes fools take soldiers for a ride.)   
  
The biggest problem with this particular town was that Duo was his roommate. The second biggest problem was that the town sat on a narrow finger of land stretching south into the ocean and the school was at the south end of town. The town's third biggest problem was that it was too small to have a decent public transportation system. It was a long walk through town. At least he was alone on the crowded sidewalk. He shifted his backpack as he waited for the light to change.   
  
"Hey, Heero!"   
  
A voice from his right -- the street. Heero turned. It sounded familiar, but he couldn't place it. One hand moved to the gun at the small of his back.   
  
The voice had come from a person on a motorcycle. Heero couldn't see his face. He was wearing a black helmet with an even blacker halo painted on, a dark tinted visor, black, padded leather jacket, heavy black jeans, black, fingerless gloves and a black backpack. The bike was black with dark grey trim, a sport model, heavily faired to minimize wind resistance. When it was running fast, the rider could lay almost flat against the top of the bike behind the tiny windshield. The rider was waving a gloved hand at Heero, then tapped it against his helmet when he realized Heero couldn't see his face.   
  
The motion triggered Heero's memory. He looked again and saw the braid just as Duo raised the visor on his helmet. "Hn." He took his hand away from the gun.   
  
"Where're you going?" Duo asked.   
  
"North." The light changed and Heero began walking across the street. Duo gunned the bike through the intersection and pulled up to the curb at the corner, taking off his helmet as he waited for Heero.   
  
It would be useless to try to ignore him. Heero wanted to turn and go west to avoid Duo, but he knew the boy would follow him. He crossed the street and stopped beside the bike and its braided rider.   
  
"Nice bike, huh? Howard had it laying around on his ship. He said I could have it if I fixed it up. Need a ride?"   
  
"No."   
  
"Oh. Well, where are you going?" Duo had grown accustomed to Heero's reticence over the past week. He had determined that the best way to deal with it was to ignore it.   
  
Heero looked at him, not saying anything.   
  
"Repairs or the mission?"   
  
"You saw the assignment?"   
    
"Of course." Duo grinned.   
  
"I'll take care of it." _He might offer to help. I don't want his help._ "I need to make some repairs first." He'd planned to sneak in and blow the place up, but now, he'd rather walk out to Wing and avoid Duo's prattling.   
  
"Then you do need a ride. I mean, it must have taken you half an hour to get here walking, and it's gotta be at least another two hours to get far enough out to, um, be safe. I can get you there in half an hour tops and bring you back when you're done."   
  
"It will take all night."   
  
"Naaniiii? I didn't know it was that bad. What's wrong? Want some help?"   
  
Again Heero tried to find a way out. He hadn't expected the boy to offer to help with the repairs. He'd thought fixing the Gundams was something Duo didn't like doing. He really wanted the peace and quiet but he knew it would do no good to lie now. Duo would give him no choice if he thought he could help. "Four IR sensors."   
  
Duo laughed. "That's good, Heero. Really, what's wrong."   
  
"Hnnn." Heero glared at him. "I don't have spares."   
  
"Uh, you're serious? You're gonna go spend the whole night with your soldering iron trying to fix four sensors knowing that the first time you take a decent hit they'll fail again?" He shook his head. "Did you research the target?"   
  
"Of course." Heero glanced around to be sure no one was watching them. Duo was being reasonably discreet, but he never knew when the loud-mouthed baka would say something... dangerous. "It's a standard supply chain disruption. I can handle it myself after I make repairs."   
  
Duo sighed. "You just looked at the building plans and decided you'd go get -- uh, well, y'know. But Heero," he leaned close and whispered in his ear, "this place makes the best IR sensors on Earth -- better than what's in the Gundams." The bite of cordite teased his nose. He liked it when it came from Heero. That thought disturbed him. He couldn't afford to be attracted to Heero. Not now, probably not ever. He forced his attention back to the issue at hand.   
  
"So, do you want to come with me to pick up a few and help me burn the place down? Or do you want to go spend all night burning your fingers on your soldering iron knowing I'm going to be the one who gets to say, 'Ninmu kanryou' this time?" He drew back in case Heero decided to punch him, trying to make the withdrawal look casual.   
_  
Damn him._ Duo had him cornered. His hopes for a quiet evening, even if it was spent burning his fingers on the soldering iron, were gone. "Ryoukai." At least the bike would drown out Duo's mouth while they rode.   
    
"Good." Duo slung his backpack down, rummaged through it and pulled out a green denim jacket. "Put this on -- it's your color, right?" He tossed Heero the helmet that rode on the seat behind him. "And this."   
  
Heero looked at him, his face the usual stare that, for all its blankness, made it clear that he thought Duo was out of his mind.   
  
"Look, Heero, even you will get a serious case of road rash if you fall off in nothing but that tank top. And hard though your head is, there is a helmet law in Japan. I, um, don't think either of us want the police arresting us, ne?"   
  
Heero nodded just the tiniest bit, forced once again to admit that Duo was right. He pulled on the oversized jacket and the helmet and climbed onto the bike behind Duo.   
  
"Uh, Ready?"   
  
_Damn. He has miked helmets._ When he thought about it for a moment, it didn't surprise him. Duo would always want to be able to talk to any passenger he might have. "Hai."   
  
"Then hang on!" Duo revved the bike and swerved into traffic, dodging between cars, zipping between lanes. He shouted at the other vehicles, "Brain donor!" and "Idiot!" and other, ruder things.   
  
Flipping off a truck driver as he cut her off was too much. "Are you trying to kill us, Duo?"   
  
It was the same, dispassionate voice, but Duo thought he detected a hint of fear. No, fear was too strong. Concern was more like it. "Aw, c'mon, Heero. You think I'd kill you this way?" He chuckled as they stopped at a traffic light. Heero was pressed tight against his backpack, arms wrapped around his waist so tight he could barely breathe. Duo didn't mind. _It's kinda nice, actually._ The light changed before he had a chance to think about that. He took off again, but forced his taunts to the other drivers into soft mutters. He didn't want to annoy Heero too much.   
    
Ten minutes later, Duo drove them down an alley and around the back of a building, and stopped the bike. He scanned the walls, looking for an entry. "OK," he said, dismounting. "You saw the layout. This is one of those places they hide in plain sight. Security is mostly passive because they don't want to attract attention. I'm gonna set a, um, delayed incendiary in the clean room." He took a book of matches and a cigarette out of his pocket. "It's a high-oxygen environment so it ought to take off like a house on fire." He laughed. Heero looked at his eyes and knew Shinigami was with them now. "The chemicals they use in post-processing are flammable. If you strategically spill a few gallons to lead the fire through the packaging area and into the storage area, I'll do the same from the clean room to packaging. We'll have this place out of commission for months." He found what he was looking for. "Give me a hand up to that fire escape."   
  
"When will you steal the parts?"   
  
"I prefer to think of it as, ah, creative acquisition of materials from the enemy. And you're going to acquire them since you'll be in the storage area. You'll have about fifteen minutes before the fire starts and another three before it gets out of the clean room. Enough?"   
  
It wasn't the stealing that bothered him -- that was just part of the mission. It was relying on Duo's plan that bothered him. Heero thought for a moment, visualizing the plans he'd located in the local building authority's computer. He made a few modifications. "Twenty minutes before the fire starts."   
  
"Good enough. Give me a hand up to the fire escape."   
    
Heero took three steps back, ran and jumped up to the fire escape, dragging it down to Duo.   
  
"Damn, Heero. I didn't know... You're more than just plain human, aren't you?"   
  
Heero walked quietly up the fire escape, ignoring the question.   
  
Duo climbed up after him. Watching Heero in the gym, he'd begun to suspect that the people who had sent him had altered him somehow. There was no way a normal 15-year-old human could maintain Heero's physique with as little effort as he put into it. And the strength he packed into that small frame... only the serious lifters, seniors at that, could out-lift him. He put aside the speculation. Now the important thing was that Heero had something up his sleeve -- not that Heero had any sleeves in that tank top. Well, flexibility was his strong suit. If the details went a little different than he'd planned, that was fine as long as the end results were the same.   
  
By the time he caught up, Heero was examining the padlock on the third-story door. "Allow me," Duo said, producing a small cloth from his jacket pocket. He unrolled it and selected a lockpick. A few seconds of careful probing were followed by a soft click. Duo pulled the lock open.   
  
Heero reached for the doorknob. Duo grabbed his hand.   
  
"Alarms. Uh, give me a hand up." Heero nodded, cupping his hands together and boosting him up. Duo examined the top of the door carefully, then chuckled -- Shinigami's chuckle. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a thin sliver of metal and slid it into the thin gap at the top of the door. He examined the rest of the door frame, placing more bits of metal at the bottom. "Magnetic sensors," he said, seeing Heero watching him as if he were crazy. "I put magnets in them to keep the contacts closed." He opened the door. Silence. He examined the door frame and nodded. "Got 'em all." He handed Heero a paper gorilla mask. "Wear that so they can't identify you if the video survives the fire. Let's go." He pulled on a skull mask and pointed Heero off to the left as he went to the right.   
  
Heero looked at the mask. Duo was right again. It made him angry. Of course, the baka had forgotten that his braid was a dead giveaway. He made a few more adjustments to the plan, dropped the mask on the floor and went left.   
  
Fifteen minutes was plenty of time to spread chemicals not just in the packaging and storage areas but in the office areas too. It was also enough time to put his other modifications in place. He was ripping the wires out of the punch-down blocks, disconnecting the phone lines, when Duo's voice surprised him.   
  
"Ahm, five minutes until ignition. Where's your mask?"   
  
"I handled the security office. The video is off and the tapes won't survive the fire. The fire alarm is off. "   
  
"And the phones, I see," Duo said, discarding his own mask. "Uh, did you get the parts yet?"   
  
"No." Heero said, looking at his handiwork.   
  
"Good thing I did." Duo held out a plastic bag containing at least twenty sensors. He waved a set of datasheets in his other hand. "The worst part about this plan was getting that cigarette going. Bleah." He coughed. "Let's go. I don't want to be in here when the place goes up." Heero nodded. They walked back the way they had come.   
  
Duo handed him the bag and papers, pausing to close the door behind them and lock the padlock, then hurried down the fire escape to the bike, two steps at a time. Heero was standing beside the bike reading the spec sheets. Duo glanced at his watch. "Uh, Heero," he said, pulling on his helmet and getting on the bike, "We have about two minutes before all Hell breaks loose."   
  
"Shut up and drive, Duo." Heero said, mounting the bike.   
  
"Ninmu kanryou, eh, Heero?" Duo asked as they sped up the alley, Heero holding on tight again. There was no response.   
  
Back on the street, Heero thought he would go mad as Duo drove them slowly away from the building. _It seems slow. He's probably just driving the speed limit so he doesn't attract attention._ They had been riding for ten minutes when they passed three police cars and a fire truck racing back the way they'd come, sirens blaring. Another minute and they passed a car with Oz insignia on it. An explosion shattered the air behind them followed seconds later by another, larger explosion.   
  
"Ninmu kanryou."   
  
"Heeeeeroooo, what was that?"   
  
"A pound of C-10 set at each of the four major supports. They should have gone together."   
  
"Damn!" Duo thought he sounded disappointed. "Four pounds? You're lucky you didn't take out the whole block." Maybe he was disappointed. His plan hadn't worked perfectly, and that was important to Heero. He cut over three blocks and traced a winding route north through the city, speeding up as they got further away from the scene of the crime. "Uh, where'd you get four pounds of C-10?"   
  
"It's easy to make. You just need a large metal container to keep it in for two days while it sets."   
  
Duo remembered the pot he'd peeked into. "THAT WAS C-10!?!? BAKA! YOU MADE C-10 IN THE ROOM!?!?" Duo started laughing. "And you think I'm crazy." At a traffic light near the northern edge of town, he asked, "Did you see anyone following us?"   
  
"No," Heero said. He was certain they hadn't been followed. Duo's strategy had worked.   
  
"Neither did I. No cop, not even an Oz cop, is smart enough to catch Duo Maxwell."   
  
"Take the next right. Follow the old coast highway north."


	5. Part 04 - Moments of Peace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> by LoneWolf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note from Dacia, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [A Little Piece of Gundam Wing](https://fanlore.org/wiki/A_Little_Piece_Of_Gundam_Wing), which closed in 2017. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after July 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [a little piece of gundam wing collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/alittlepieceofgundamwing/profile).

(Sometimes soldiers and fools relax.)   
  
The light changed and they continued north. On the open road, Duo leaned forward on the bike, dragging Heero with him, and opened the throttle. "Wooooooo-hooooooo!" His braid flew behind him over Heero's shoulder, flapping in the wind like the tail of a dragon.   
  
_It's almost like flying,_ Heero thought as he lay pressed tight against Duo's back, feeling the wind rip through his hair and down his neck, filling the back of the denim jacket -- and ignoring Duo's talk. He peered over Duo's shoulder and saw they were doing... seventy? There was no way they were doing only seventy.   
  
"How fast?"   
  
"Huh?" Duo looked at the speedometer. "Just over seventy. Oh, that's _miles_ per hour. Something like..."   
  
"116 kilometers per hour."   
  
"Yeah, that sounds about right." Duo trusted Heero's math. "Not fast enough for you?" The pitch of the engine rose and the gauge moved up to one-hundred. "One of Howard's engineers helped me rebuild the engine. I've had her up to 195, 200 before, but she was a bitch to handle. He knew engines, not steering."   
  
"Hn." Heero decided he didn't want to watch the speedometer any more. The concept of an accident at this speed was... unpleasant. He did a quick calculation. "Turn left in two kilometers."   
  
Duo slowed the bike, taking most of the distance to do it, and turned onto a narrow trail Heero pointed out. The bike wasn't built for off-road use. He drove at a crawl for another fifteen minutes of trails, twists and turns until they reached Wing, laying among the trees under a tent of camouflage netting.   
  
Heero swung off the bike.   
  
"I'll be back in about an hour, maybe less" Duo said, looking at his watch and pushing buttons on it. He turned the bike around and headed back the way they'd come.   
  
Heero didn't stop him. An hour without Duo chattering would be a welcome respite. As the sound of the bike faded back up the trail, Heero walked around Wing, looking for his tell-tales -- a leaf here, a stick there. They were all exactly where he'd left them. No one had found this place. He retrieved his toolkit from the cockpit and set about replacing the sensors.   
  
Forty-eight minutes later, he was removing the cover plate on the third sensor when the faint whine of an engine pierced his concentration. He listened, thinking it might be Duo's bike. It wasn't. It was a mobile suit. "Damn," he muttered, diving into the cockpit. He punched buttons in rapid succession, activating Wing's passive sensors and bringing the active systems to standby. Nothing. He slapped the console in front of him. Still nothing. The sound was getting louder.  He climbed out of the cockpit, listening, orienting. There, to the west, about six klicks away. Then the sound faded, engines shutting down. Heero drew his gun, checked the clip and flicked off the safety. He was turning back to the cockpit when the ground shuddered. He grabbed the door, bracing himself. A branch snapped no more than 100 meters away. _How did they get so close so fast?_ He hid behind the cockpit door, gun ready as one hand reached back to bring Wing's systems to full ready. Maybe he could get the beam rifle on line before--   
    
If he hadn't been looking at it when it happened, he never would have believed it. Deathscythe appeared out of nowhere, laying down among the trees in front of him. A bleeping started in Wing's cockpit. Heero poked his head in and saw the display confirming his eyes' report. "Now you tell me," he muttered, backhanding the offending monitor and deactivating the alert. _He must have hellacious countermeasures,_ Heero thought. _They even suppress the engine noise._ He hit the shut down switch and walked from behind the door, looking at the other Gundam. It seemed somehow... vague.   
  
Duo wasn't. He saw Heero, waved at him, then set about pulling camouflage netting from a compartment in Deathscythe's leg. Heero shrugged, satisfied that Duo would do an acceptable job concealing his machine and clambered back up to the third sensor.   
  
He was soldering the most difficult joint of the connection when sound erupted. "Dies Irae..." The voices startled him. The soldering iron slipped, searing the tip of his finger. Heero hissed and put the burned finger in his mouth, sucking on it, listening to the music. Male voices interwove with female voices in a complex interplay of harmony and counterpoint. It seemed simple on the surface, but he sensed there were depths to it that only the composer understood. He should have known Duo wouldn't be able to endure the quiet woods.   
  
After replacing the damaged sensors, Heero replaced the three good sensors. Duo had stolen plenty of parts and they had better resolution and sensitivity than the old sensors. The music changed several times before he finished, jumping from the heavy classical piece Duo had started with through rock, jazz, J-pop, blues and folk in a seemingly random pattern. Heero decided Duo's musical tastes were best described as eclectic if not outright chaotic. Somehow it didn't surprise him.   
  
He looked up, seeing that twilight had unveiled the first stars of the night. Deathscythe was an indistinct, dark mass among the trees a short distance away. The voice singing from the Gundam's speakers was the same spellbinding soprano Heero had heard from Duo's headphones six days ago. He was almost certain it was the same song. A few meters away, Duo had pitched a tent and was cooking something over a small fire. It smelled like fish. Heero ducked into the cockpit and ran a diagnostic on the sensors. They picked up clear infrared images of everything except Deathscythe. "Hellacious countermeasures", Heero said to Wing's monitors. Motion on the screen caught his eye. Duo was beckoning to him. His hands began shutting down the Gundam. They didn't need him to guide them through the familiar task. That left him free to think about what he was going to do next.   
  
It had been a long day. He was tired. He was hungry. He was angry.   
  
He wanted to make Duo take him back to the dorm tonight, but he knew that would involve a long argument. He didn't want a lot of talking right now. He wanted to walk back to the dorm on his own, but it would take hours, and Duo would probably wake up early just so he could arrive an hour after Heero got back. He decided to stay. Duo had a tent -- he could sleep. Duo had food -- he could eat. Two out of three problems solved.   
  
He secured the cockpit and jumped down from Wing and walked over to the campsite. Duo had arranged two folding canvas chairs so they could face each other across the fire. Heero sat as Duo handed him a plate of fish and flat cakes of bread that looked like they had been cooked in the frying pan. He noticed Duo had traded the jeans and leather jacket for a pair of black, knee-length shorts and a black tank top with arm holes that reached to his waist. The design on the front was hand-painted. The words "Fallen Angel" underneath a naked, black-winged angel, swinging a scythe. It looked suspiciously like Duo, right down to the violet eyes and braid. A tiny "DM-194" ran vertically beside the "L" in "Angel", but Heero wasn't sure what it signified.   
  
"Um, sorry I startled you with the music. I always like to listen to a little K626 after a mission." Duo only mustered a half-smile.   
  
"Is that who the first one was?"   
  
"Sorry, I forget not everyone knows Mozart. K626 is the 'Requiem Mass', the one he died writing. 'Dies Irae', 'Kyrie Eleison' and 'Requiem Aeternam' specifically." He frowned faintly.   
  
Heero nodded. Catholic and Death. Duo. For all that he claimed to like it, the music apparently disturbed him. Heero chose not to pursue it, tasting a bite of the fish instead. Fresh, hot and delicious. He hadn't known Duo could cook.   
  
"You, uh, get the repairs done?"   
  
"Yes." The bread cakes were a little salty for his taste, but not too much so.   
  
"They worked out OK, huh?" Duo said around a mouthful of bread.   
  
Heero stared over Duo's shoulder at the Gundam he couldn't really see though he knew he was looking straight at it. "Well enough. Hiding them this close together is risky."   
  
Duo was still getting used to Heero's sudden shifts in conversation. "Ummm, only to Deathscythe. I rigged up a solar panel and a battery so he can run limited stealth even when he's shut down. And if that fails, there's the camo-net." He stuffed another bite of fish in his mouth. "Awmd Wiwmk--" He chewed and swallowed. "Wing's hidden well too. I never would have found you again without the coordinates." He held up his watch showing a GPS display.   
  
"Besides," Duo added, "this way I can give you a ride when we get our next mission."   
  
Heero shrugged. If Wing couldn't detect Deathscythe, even with the new sensors aimed right at it, he knew Oz wouldn't find the other Gundam easily. He drank a gulp of the coffee Duo had made and ate the rest of his dinner in silence.   
  
Duo had learned to recognize Heero's "angry and hiding it" behavior three days into their shared assignment. He'd spent those days provoking Heero non-stop, but anger was always the easiest, and most useful, emotion to know in your partner. Now, he knew Heero was angry -- and it wasn't about him relocating Deathscythe. Heero rarely talked about why he was angry. It was time to fix that little problem.   
  
He took Heero's empty plate. "So, uh, why are you mad at me, Heero?"   
  
Heero's eyes were colder than Duo had ever seen them. He thought, perhaps, Heero would ignore him, or maybe threaten to kill him. _Or maybe just kill me, period._ Finally, the words grated out. "You followed me."   
  
Duo almost dropped the plates he was holding. "I did not!" The icy glare didn't change. "You don't believe me. You have got to be one of the most conceited people I've ever met. Like I have nothing better to do than follow you around town all day..." He rambled on as he set the plates down and pulled his backpack out of the tent, digging through it. "Here." He pulled out a plastic bag and tossed it to Heero. "I went shopping. I actually _paid_ for that. See the receipt. Then I was heading for the lab and looked over and, hey, there's my old buddy Heero. Betcha he's going somewhere, maybe the same place I am, though he'd never talk to me about a mission. He'd much rather ignore me and do things the hard way. I bet he could use a ride wherever he's going." Duo's monologue continued as Heero opened the bag and found a black silk robe with violet dragons embroidered on the collar and back. There was a receipt in the bottom of the bag.   
  
"The jacket." Heero interrupted.   
  
"I saw it at the store and knew you'd look great in it." Duo blinked, hearing what he'd said. "Uh, anyway, check the receipt. It's there. And before you ask, I caught the fish in the river," he pointed to the fishing rod Heero hadn't noticed, "and yes, I keep camping gear in Deathscythe. You never know when you'll be stuck out in the middle of nowhere wishing you had a fire and a meal. Satisfied?"   
  
Duo had never seen that look on Heero's face before. He stashed it in his list of unidentified expressions.   
  
Heero handed the bag back to him. He shrugged. "I believe you."   
  
_He believes me? Is that all he's going to say?_ Duo realized it was. It was also the closest he'd ever heard Heero come to apologizing. He'd actually admitted he was wrong. Mollified, he filed the face under "sorry" and smiled. "It's forgotten. Um, help me wash dishes?"   
  
Heero nodded, picking up the frying pan and coffeepot, and followed Duo to the river. He realized he was no longer angry. _Three out of three. Duo is beginning to scare me._  
  
After the cooking gear was packed away, Duo suggested they lay around the fire and watch the stars.   
  
"I'm going to bed." Heero said, taking off his tank top. Duo shrugged, watching as Heero undressed, and stifling a grin when he saw Heero was wearing the grey cotton boxers he'd slipped into his drawer. He knew better than to say anything as Heero climbed into the tent. Duo lay watching the stars and listening to Heero's breathing as it slowed into sleep. "Heero," he whispered.   
  
"What, Duo?"   
  
"Nothing." He'd wanted to know if Heero was really asleep. He spent the next hour marking off the constellations as they moved above him and trying to match his breathing to Heero's sleep-like rhythms.   
  
He heard Heero move in the tent, then saw Heero's head above his. "You're awake."   
  
Duo grinned. "Just practicing."   
  
"Hn. It's late."   
  
Duo nodded. Star-gazing was more fun when you had someone else gazing with you. He joined Heero in the tent.   
  
The next morning, Heero helped Duo install the new sensors on Deathscythe, then Duo insisted he learn how to fish. Heero resisted. After five unsuccessful minutes with the rod, he waded in the river, stared into the water for a moment, grabbed and threw a small fish up onto the shore. "Satisfied?"   
  
Duo gave up. And added hand-eye coordination to his list of enhanced things.   
  
Back at their hiding place, they split the remaining sensors and added them to their spare parts boxes. While Duo changed into his jeans and leather jacket, Heero stowed the camping gear in its compartment in DeathScythe's leg, then walked over to the bike. Duo was searching his pockets for his keys. He looked up and saw Heero, dangling them in front of him.   
  
"I'm driving," Heero said.   
  
Duo opened his mouth to protest, then said, "Sure," and slid back on the seat. Heero put on the green jacket and straddled the seat in front of him. "Just be careful with her," Duo said in his ear, trying to ignore the scent of cordite.   
  
Heero nodded as he started the engine and pulled on the helmet. "Ready?" He felt Duo's arms close around his waist, then the voice came through the speaker in the helmet. "Yeah. Ready."   
  
He drove them out of the woods at a cautious pace. At the old highway, he stopped, considering. He'd chosen this road when he hid his Gundam because it was rarely used. A new, six-lane road eight klicks to the east offered a more direct line between the town and the rest of civilization. Now, the gently winding coast road was an opportunity. He turned north, away from town.   
  
"Hey, town's the other way," Duo said.   
  
"I know." Heero leaned forward, accelerating. Duo leaned with him until they were flat against the bike, legs tucked up beneath them. Heero took five minutes to bring the speedometer up to 170, stepping through the gears, getting a feel for the handling. Duo pressed against his back like a second skin.   
  
"Wooo-hooo!" Duo yelled, the wind pulling his braid out straight behind him, arms tight around Heero's waist. "I never woulda guessed you'd be a speed freak."   
  
An hour later, Heero slowed, stopped and turned them back to town, flying. "I just wanted to get a feel for a real motorcycle."   
  
At first Duo thought Heero was complimenting his bike, then remembered what little he'd guessed about Heero's past. "Naaniiii? You've never driven a bike before?!"   
  
"Simulators. Part of my training." The arms around his waist pulled even tighter.   
  
After he parked the bike in Duo's hiding place near the dorm, Heero had to help him back to their room. His legs were a bit unsteady.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who don't know Latin, Duo's selections from K626 were, "The Day of Wrath", "Lord Have Mercy" and "Eternal Rest" -- the first three movements in reverse order.


	6. Part 05 - Buried Treasure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> by LoneWolf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note from Dacia, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [A Little Piece of Gundam Wing](https://fanlore.org/wiki/A_Little_Piece_Of_Gundam_Wing), which closed in 2017. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after July 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [a little piece of gundam wing collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/alittlepieceofgundamwing/profile).

(Sometimes soldiers find weaknesses. Sometimes fools are surprised by what they find.)   
  
Heero had come to hate homework. It wasn't the homework itself. It was--   
  
"Um, can you give me a hint on number twenty-five?" Duo asked.   
  
It was the desk. "Subject?" The desk had a large, square top and seats for two people facing each other.   
  
"Ah, Physics."   
  
Heero was still trying to figure out why Duo had to make all those unnecessary sounds around his words. "Physics," would have been sufficient, but Duo had to add an "Ah" or an "Um" or an "Er" to everything he said, even in Japanese. He shifted mental tracks and found problem twenty-five in his memory. "An inclined plane."   
  
Duo squinted at the problem as if that would help him see it better. His head cocked to the left, then the right. He twiddled the end of his braid between his fingers. Heero was rewarded with that look of sudden understanding that Duo always got. Why had he watched for it? He'd seen it often enough.   
    
"Oh, like my hair. It's straight, just twisted into a braid."   
  
He thought about that for a second. "Close enough." Duo's mind ran in strange courses.   
  
Heero went back to his English Literature homework. He didn't like literature classes in any language, especially when the instructor assigned composition pieces. He was writing a sonnet in the English Romantic style. He had no problem with the rigid rules of form, but the actual writing was... difficult. Five minutes passed as he squeezed out three more words.   
  
"Um, hint on number thirty?"   
  
Heero searched his memory. Problem thirty wasn't part of the assignment. Duo may have been a loud-mouthed idiot, but in the fifteen days and twelve hours they'd been sharing this room, Heero had learned he wasn't stupid -- and he didn't do unnecessary work. He looked up and saw Duo watching him.   
  
"Anou. You, uh, seem to be concentrating awfully hard and not writing much."   
  
"English. A Romantic-style sonnet." _Leave me alone. This is difficult enough as it is._ But he didn't say that. It would certainly provoke--   
  
"Hey, can I read it?"   
  
Funny. The boy was serious. He really wanted to read it. "It isn't finished." Heero tried to think of a better excuse but the paper slipped from his hands before he realized it.   
  
_Damn the little thief's hands!_ Training redirected the anger. Heero slowly considered ten different ways of killing Duo with varying degrees of pain. "Duo, give it back."   
  
Duo recognized the threat in Heero's voice. Most people wouldn't, but Duo's catalog of the subtle signs of the emotions Heero kept in tight rein -- _stabled is more like it_ \-- had grown quite large. "Y'know, English is my first language. And I like the Romantic poets. I could, uh, help you with this." He looked at Heero, watching the almost-invisible twitches and twinges as Heero considered his offer -- contempt, faint surprise, disbelief, one he didn't recognize, careful considering. _Should be safe now._ "And the first thing is, um, war and bloodshed aren't exactly in the Romantic style."   
  
"The Romantic poets wrote about nature." Duo looked at him, uncertain where he was going. "War is natural."   
  
Duo's mouth quirked into a sad smile. "Not to the Romantics. They were interested in Nature with a capital 'N'. Y'know, uh, trees, grass, wind, clouds, water, ... and magic." He drew himself up and quoted, his voice different, deeper, passionate. "Come away, O human child! / To the waters and the wild / With a faery, hand in hand, / For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand."   
  
Heero stared at him, eyebrows raised a hairbreadth. Duo watched him for a moment, then decided that must be surprise and added it to his list. "What is a faery? Did you write that?"   
  
"I wish!" Duo laughed. "I draw. That's William Butler Yeats' 'Stolen Child'." He paused, staring through Heero into some unseen place.   
  
They had covered Yeats in English Lit, but Heero knew that particular poem wasn't in their books. Duo must have memorized it. Maybe he did know something about this. If he was going to have to put up with the boy's mouth, maybe he could direct it to something useful. "So what should I write about in a Romantic sonnet?"   
  
"Hmmmm?" Duo's eyes half-connected with the here-and-now. "Come with me." Before Heero could protest, Duo grabbed a pencil, a notebook and him and was dragging them out the door.   
  
"Hnnnnn!" Heero jerked away.   
  
"OH!" Duo retreated as if expecting a blow. "Ah, sorry?" His voice squeaked.   
  
Heero contemplated a few more painful deaths, then shrugged. He was just trying to help even if he was being obnoxiously enthusiastic about it. "Lead," he ordered. Tension melted out of Duo's shoulders. Heero saw his hand move away from the pocket with the gun.   
_  
Did he notice that?_ Each wondered.   
  
They continued at a more sedate pace, Duo chattering away about Romantic philosophy and Heero three-quarters-ignoring him as he scanned for threats. Eventually, they came to a part of the park that seemed forgotten by everyone else. "Sit." Heero sat with feline grace, leaning against a tree. Duo flopped down unceremoniously beside him. "What do you see?"   
  
Heero looked around. "Trees. Water. Grass. Birds. Dirt." He stopped, not certain what else to say, and looked at Duo. The boy was watching him and Heero could see he'd written words, Heero's words, in the notebook. Duo motioned for him to continue. Heero looked around again. "Sunlight on water. A pond. ... Cherry trees. Cherry blossoms. Ducks. Sparrows. ... Clouds." Duo was strangely silent. "That one looks like you." Heero wondered what was wrong with Duo -- he wasn't saying anything -- but he knew he wasn't supposed to look at him. "Wind blowing the cherry blossoms. I smell them too."   
  
After a few minutes, Duo nudged him. "OK. Here's a list. Pick five things off of it." Duo had dutifully written down everything Heero had itemized. Heero had never noticed how neat the boy's handwriting was.   
  
"Cherry blossoms. Sparrows. ... Sunlight on water. ... Wind. ..." Nothing else on the list seemed right. He was about to add dirt, when Duo said, "Four is good enough."   
  
"You said five." He didn't like mission parameters changing underneath him.   
  
Duo smiled, shaking his head. He'd had his own chance to see understanding begin to dawn as Heero had named things while he wrote. He liked it. "Rhyme and rhythm are the only formula in a sonnet. The rest is up to the writer. You could choose five or ten or four or even one thing on this list and still write a sonnet. Four is enough." He turned the page and wrote Heero's choices on a blank sheet tore it out and handed it to him, then wrote them again in the notebook. "Tell me about those things. English or Japanese. It doesn't matter which."   
  
Heero stared at the paper. "Cherry blossoms are flowers from a tree of the genus--"   
  
Duo punched him in the shoulder. "Look at what's around you." He slapped the paper. "A map is just a representation. It's useless if you don't see what it represents."   
  
Heero looked, and slowly described the things he saw. Neither of them noticed the hours passing until the sky began to glow orange with sunset. Odd that his internal sense of time hadn't warned him how late it was. That didn't matter right now. "Can we add sunset?" Heero asked, almost a whisper.   
  
Duo glanced up at him and froze as if he'd spotted a wary deer and didn't want to frighten it away. This wasn't the Heero he knew. This was, perhaps, the Heero beneath the soldier. The one he hoped to see more often. He liked this Heero -- very much. "Tell me about it and how it fits with the other things," he said, softly. Heero spoke and Duo wrote until the sky was dusted with stars.   
  
"OK," Duo said, "that's enough. I'm gonna go blind if I try to write by starlight. Let's go back to the room." He stood and offered Heero a hand up. To his amazement, Heero took it and pulled himself up. Duo squinted in the darkness. Heero looked a bit, well, out of it. He laid a gentle hand on the other boy's elbow, guiding him as if he were blind until he felt Heero's steps return to their normal, assured pace and the elbow swung away.   
  
"Don't lose that mind set just yet. There's more work to do." Heero looked at him, and Duo read the unspoken question. "You've got to go through three pages of description in English and Japanese and beat it into a sonnet form in English."   
  
"I thought--"   
  
"You wouldn’t want me doing your homework for you now, would you?" Duo flashed him a quick grin, not waiting for the answer he already knew. "I'll help if you need it." He handed Heero the notebook. "You go on and get started while I go get us dinner. Just take those pages and try to make the words fit a sonnet form. And remember what you saw when you said them. That's important. Chinese food?"   
  
Heero nodded and watched Duo's braid disappear into the darkness. He knew something wasn't quite right. Duo had said almost nothing all afternoon and when he had spoken there was not an "Um" or "Uh" to be heard. _Strange_ , he thought.   
  
He looked at the notebook. _His_ night vision was excellent and he saw the clean, flowing English letters Duo had written. There were little drawings beside many of the words, vignettes of the things he'd described. And the Kanji... _He has a hand worthy of haiku._ Heero decided he wasn't going to rectify this afternoon with his image of Duo -- not any time soon -- and he needed to finish this poem tonight. He walked up the stairs to the room, reading, and noted a tiny "DM-195" at the bottom of each sheet.   
  
When Duo came in with dinner a half-hour later, he was surprised to see Heero laying on the top bunk. "Hey! I'm not gonna write that sonnet for you, Spandex Boy."   
  
Heero ignored the taunt, simply pointing down at a piece of paper on the desk and watching as Duo read. When Duo's mouth dropped, something warm stole through Heero's chest, just long enough to feel before it hid again.   
  
"Damn," Duo whispered. He read it again. "Damn. Heero, you wrote this? I mean, uh, yeah you obviously did, but... Well... Damn!" He shook his head, then grinned, "I'd've never guessed you had it in you."   
  
Heero saw "lie" written all over Duo's face, but didn't know why it would be a lie. Duo laid the paper on Heero's dresser as if it were a fragile crystal ornament and set dinner out on the desk. "Um, let's eat. I'm hungry."   
  
He yammered through the meal. Heero wasn't certain how Duo managed to eat and talk at the same time, but he did notice that "Um" and "Uh" were back. Things seemed to be back to normal, but Heero knew something had changed today. He just wasn't sure what.


	7. Part 06 - Hopeful Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> by LoneWolf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note from Dacia, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [A Little Piece of Gundam Wing](https://fanlore.org/wiki/A_Little_Piece_Of_Gundam_Wing), which closed in 2017. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after July 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [a little piece of gundam wing collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/alittlepieceofgundamwing/profile).

(Sometimes simple gifts are the most precious. Sometimes fools find hope.)   
  
Duo's soft snoring broke the last shreds of sleep from Heero's head. No classes today, but he did have some pre-calc homework to do. Now would be a good time, without Duo awake and talking at him. He crept down from his bunk, stealthy as moonlight, and ghosted across to the desk. He reached for his notebook, and froze. Someone had moved it.   
  
He studied it. Carefully replaced, but slightly moved. He glared at his sleeping roommate. Duo was compelled to mess with his stuff. Heero repositioned the notebook to its proper place and opened it.   
  
Someone -- Duo -- had put a page in the book. Heero unfolded it. It was twice the size of the pages in the notebook. His eyebrows rose. Beautifully drawn characters filled the stiff sheet of paper, spelling out the words of a poem in English. "William Butler Yeats" and "Stolen Child" were laid out neatly across the top of the page. Heero remembered it was the poem Duo had quoted to him last week. In the bottom, right corner was a tiny "DM-195". Heero remembered the shirt and the pages Duo had drawn for the sonnet and realized that must be how Duo signed his pieces. He'd never realized Duo was this good.   
  
He read. "Where dips the rocky highland / Of Sleuth Wood ..." What kind of tree is sleuth wood? A hair-thin line led to a picture in the margin -- a tree-covered crag overlooking a still lake. Oh, a place. Other images filled the margins and spaces of the paper. Maybe he wouldn't need an encyclopedia. He could remember all the biographical details of the Celtic Revival poet from English Lit, but they didn't fit with anything he really knew. He read on.   
  
Where dips the rocky highland   
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,   
There lies a leafy island   
Where flapping herons wake   
The drowsy water-rats;   
There we've hid our faery vats,   
Full of berries   
And of reddest stolen cherries.   
  
Come away, O human child!   
To the waters and the wild   
With a faery, hand in hand,   
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.   
  
Where the wave of moonlight glosses   
The dim grey sands with light,   
By far off, furthest Rosses   
We foot it all the night,   
Weaving olden dances,   
Mingling hands and mingling glances   
Till the moon has taken flight;   
To and fro we leap   
And chase the frothy bubbles,   
While the world is full of troubles   
And is anxious in its sleep.   
  
Come away, O human child!   
To the waters and the wild   
With a faery, hand in hand,   
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.   
  
Where the wandering water gushes   
From the hills above Glen-Car,   
In pools among the rushes   
That scarce could bathe a star,   
We seek for slumbering trout   
And whispering in their ears   
Give them unquiet dreams;   
Leaning softly out   
From ferns that drop their tears   
Over the young streams.   
  
Come away, O human child!   
To the waters and the wild   
With a faery, hand in hand,   
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.   
  
Away with us he's going,   
The solemn-eyed;   
He'll hear no more the lowing   
Of the calves on the warm hillside   
Or the kettle on the hob   
Sing peace into his breast,   
Or see the brown mice bob   
Round and round the oatmeal-chest.   
  
For he comes, the human child,   
To the waters and the wild   
With a faery, hand in hand,   
From a world more full of weeping than he can understand.   
  
The words and images stirred him in ways that were at once familiar and alien, but the refrain Duo had quoted resonated deeply within him, especially the shift at the end. "For he comes, the human child," he whispered.   
  
_Who cares about being human?_ the soldier whispered. _This is a war._  
  
"I care. I want to be human one day," Heero mumbled softly. He knew he needed the soldier now, for the months or years that the secret war dragged on, but he didn't like the way the soldier wanted to own him. The soldier wanted him to be nothing else, just a weapon. That was what he needed to be now, but later. Maybe when it was all over he could be something else.   
  
Beside the last refrain was a picture of a dark-haired boy being led into the moonrise by a long-haired, winged figure. He knew what it was. He'd looked up faeries in the encyclopedia three days ago. He allowed a sigh to escape his control. Then he noticed the faery's hair was braided.   
  
The room was quiet.   
  
Duo's soft snore started again.   
  
Heero looked up, watching him. He really seemed to be asleep.   
  
He studied the paper again for long minutes. _What are you trying to say, Duo?_ He shook his head, then took the page and walked over to his dresser. From the bottom drawer, he pulled a small, flat box from beneath a blanket and slipped the page in with the battered flower, a scrap of worn fake fur, a bullet with a red tip and three sheets of notebook paper covered with words and pictures. _Why do I keep these things?_  
  
_Because you're weak,_ the soldier whispered. _Because you're stupid enough to think you can live a normal life one day.  
  
I will, you bastard. Just wait._  
  
Silence again.   
  
He didn't raise his head, but turned his eyes to the mirror over the sink, watching Duo's reflection. _Still asleep, just not snoring anymore._ He put the box away and returned to the desk. Pre-calc was calling.   
  
When Heero's pencil started scratching figures on the paper, Duo half-opened his eyes again and smiled. He'd decided he liked Heero Yuy, even Heero Yuy the Perfect Bastard. And the poem... Well, he'd seen Heero's face as he read it and tried to figure out the meaning. Heero's vaunted control wasn't nearly as good when he thought no one was looking.   
  
_If I keep working on you, Heero, you just might end up getting your wish some day._ He knew Heero was human, had seen him make mistakes and get angry and even apologize, but he understood. Heero wanted to learn how to be a normal human. It wouldn't be easy.   
  
_Wouldn’t that be a laugh? Death heals a soldier._ Duo had been trying to be a normal human for a long time and had yet to succeed. He wasn't sure he could teach something he didn't understand, but he wanted to try. Of all the pilots, Heero was probably the most innocent of the lot. The others, including himself, had chosen their role in the war in some form or another. Heero's had been chosen for him. He'd never really had a chance to know what he was getting into or what he was giving up. He had been made into a soldier -- had, from what Duo had been able to dig out and guess, never really known much else. Heero most deserved someone trying for him, and it looked like Duo Maxwell, the Fallen Angel, Shinigami was the only one around to do it.   
  
He closed his eyes again, thinking. In Celtic mythology one of the Morrigan's faces was a fertility goddess. _Maybe I can give Shinigami another face too._ He nodded, but he was too close to sleep to actually move his head. _A chance to make up for some of the horror I've brought into the world. A chance for..._ His fingers tightened around the cross on his chest. _Maybe_. Duo wasn't sure he believed in redemption, certainly not for a person as complicit in his sin as he was. Certainly not for a fallen angel. As cousin Sleep claimed him, an old memory fluttered through his mind.   
  
+  
  
Sister Helen sat, holding him on her lap as she tended the cut over his eye that he'd earned while taunting an Alliance soldier on the street today. "Little angel," she said softly as she finished taping the wound.   
  
"Little _fallen_ angel, you mean." He had no doubts about his position. He shouldn't have been taunting the soldier. Hell, he shouldn't have even been out on the street in the first place. It was his own damn big mouth that had gotten him hurt. One of these days, maybe he'd learn to control it.   
  
"No." She smiled and hugged him. "An angel waiting for wings."   
  
He had no doubts, except the times when she smiled and hugged him.   
  
+  
  
Heero looked up as the soft snore started again. Duo would have recognized the glimmer of suspicion had he been awake, but he wasn't. Heero wondered why he was smiling, decided it didn't matter, then went back to his homework.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the non-Celtophiles, in Celtic mythlogy the Morrigan is the goddess of battle and strife, queen of the ravens that attend the battlefield and eat the dead. She has two other aspects, one of which includes significant fertility goddess features.
> 
> Loreena McKennitt's rendition of Yeats' "Stolen Child" on her album "Elemental", is haunting. You'll likely not forget it soon. Yeats would approve. You can find info at her website -- http://loreenamckennitt.com/.


	8. Part 07 - Confutatis Maledictis (Judgement of the Damned)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> by LoneWolf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note from Dacia, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [A Little Piece of Gundam Wing](https://fanlore.org/wiki/A_Little_Piece_Of_Gundam_Wing), which closed in 2017. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after July 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [a little piece of gundam wing collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/alittlepieceofgundamwing/profile).

(Sometimes fools strike truer than soldiers.)   
  
The shell exploded behind his back and the world jumped.   
  
Heero bolted upright in bed, wide eyed, sweat soaked, heart racing, mouth gasping for air, face unaccountably wet. _Just sweat,_ he told himself. Long seconds passed before his breathing and heartbeat were under control. He didn't know why he woke up like this some nights. It only happened after a mission.   
_  
Because you're weak._ The soldier said. _I can make you strong. If you'd let me do more than fight the battles, this wouldn't happen._  
  
A part of Heero was tempted by the offer, but another part he'd never quite understood warned him against it. It was the part of him that wanted to be human one day. He trusted that part more than he trusted the soldier and chose to review the mission in his mind instead of answering the soldier's proposal.   
  
The afternoon's mission had been simple. He and Duo had destroyed the only factory in Asia that made hip and knee joints for Leos, putting a major dent in Oz's parts supply. That was good. In the old days armies may have marched on their stomachs, but now they marched on spare parts. His thoughts paused as he listened to Duo breathing. He couldn't tell if he was asleep or awake. _He's getting too good at that._ Heero had caught him practicing a couple of times, but lately, it had been harder. Before long, Heero knew Duo would have mastered that little trick. Maybe it would serve him well sometime.   
  
He slid his legs over the edge of the bed and sat there, trying to decide if he should go over to the sink and wipe his face with a cool washcloth. It would feel good to get the sweat -- it was only sweat -- off his face. His throat felt dry, almost raw. Maybe some water too.   
  
A soft touch on his heel. "Heero?"   
  
Adrenaline surged. His heart raced. He jerked his legs back up onto the bed. _Damn him! Damn him! DAMN HIM! He was awake. Whydoyoucare? Idon'tknow._ The soldier was silent. He didn't have to speak. Heero could feel his mocking smile.   
  
"Heero, are you OK?"   
  
Duo's head appeared from the lower bunk. Light reflected off his eyes, the eerie sheen making Heero wonder for a moment if his nickname, Shinigami, wasn't truth. In battle, there was little dou-- Heero strangled the thoughts as he heard the soldier's soft snicker. He could do this alone if he had to. Control. He concentrated. Control. His heart slowed again. He moved his focus to Duo's shoulder, an innocuous part of anyone's body.   
  
"Daijoubu?" Duo's head moved further out of the bunk as if he might be about to get up.   
  
Control. ... "Hai." Control. "I just wake up like that some nights." For some reason Duo winced at that, but at least he stayed where he was.   
  
Duo had heard the glacier come crashing back in Heero's voice. "It was just a nightmare," Duo said. Before Heero could say anything he added, "I have them too." He saw Heero's head turn in the darkness. He couldn't see them, but he could feel the cold, cold eyes on him.   
  
"I don't dream." He saw the look of disbelief on Duo's face. "I have never dreamed." Duo's head disappeared back into his bed. There was blessed silence. The soldier told him it was what he'd wanted, but somehow it didn't make him any more comfortable.   
  
_Liar!_ Duo thought. _And that lie hurt you more than me even if you don't realize it. You didn't cry out, a good soldier wouldn't, but I listened to you whimpering and thrashing the sheets for five minutes. I would have climbed up and shook you awake if I'd thought you wouldn't have killed me before you knew what you were doing._  
  
Instead he'd kicked the bunk above him. His foot was still sore, but he'd accomplished his mission. Now he had another. Heero needed to be reminded of the truth.   
  
"Everyone dreams, Heero," Duo whispered to the wall, knowing Heero would hear him. Knowing Heero would think he didn't know it. "And soldiers' dreams are always nightmares. It's worst after a mission, when you've let the soldier do his job, killing and destroying, and then you pretend to be human again. You dream each one of them at the moment you killed them. You wake up, wanting to run, but you don't know how to run from yourself, crying, but you don't know which of you you're crying for. And all you really want is..."  He stopped, frowned.   
  
He wasn't sure what he wanted. Maybe peace. Maybe a chance to forget it all. Maybe hope. Maybe quiet. Maybe someone to hold him like Sister Helen had and make him think for a moment that he could be a real angel one day instead of a clumsy fallen angel waiting for the wings that he knew would never come. He had known what he wanted once. He was sure of that. But that was long ago when he was younger -- much younger. Somewhere along the way, he'd forgotten what it was. Somewhere in all the death and fighting and anger and pain... He fell asleep, right hand locked tight around the end of his braid, trying to remember what he wanted.   
  
Heero lay in his bed, hands clasped behind his head, staring at the ceiling. He was certain Duo was asleep now. "Dreams are obstacles," he told the blank slab above him. He lay awake, thinking about what Duo had said, and wondering why he had stopped. For a moment he had thought Duo was going to tell him what he should want. He had been disappointed to hear the soft breathing start. He had known it wasn't a ruse. Maybe Duo had fallen asleep. Or maybe he was lost too. That kept him awake for the rest of the night.   
  
Twice Duo's own nightmares came for him. Heero shook the bunk, stirring the boy just enough to break their hold. "Obstacles must be eliminated." One of them should get a good night's sleep tonight.   
  
The soldier approved of the statement if not the sentiment.   
  
Somehow Heero thought that was good.


	9. Part 08 - Lacrymosa (Day of Tears)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> by LoneWolf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note from Dacia, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [A Little Piece of Gundam Wing](https://fanlore.org/wiki/A_Little_Piece_Of_Gundam_Wing), which closed in 2017. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after July 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [a little piece of gundam wing collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/alittlepieceofgundamwing/profile).

(Sometimes soldiers and fools part.)   
  
Heero lay in his bunk, watching as Duo tapped away on the computer. He'd been spending far too much time on it the past two days. Not that _he_ was one to talk about someone spending too much time in front of the keyboard. But for Duo, it was far too much. He'd also been quieter than normal. _If you could ever apply the word "quiet" to Duo._ He was up to something. Heero waited. Duo had a class in fifteen minutes.   
  
Twelve minutes later, Heero took steps to ensure the success of his mission. "Duo."   
  
Duo looked left, right, at the door, and finally at Heero. "Uh, what Heero?" _Damn! Heero actually initiated a conversation._   
  
"Your Japanese History class."   
  
"Oh." Duo stared at the screen for a moment, debating, then saved files, shut down, grabbed books and walked out.   
  
_Walked_ , Heero noted. _He usually runs to class when he cuts it this close._ He watched out the window until he saw Duo on the steps in front of the dormitory, still walking, then jumped down and went to the computer. He'd stolen the system administrator password by calling in a fake problem and watching the technician who came to fix it. In the past, he'd used it to cover his tracks. Now, he used it to find Duo's. The usage logs pointed him to the files Duo had been working on. The directory was hidden, as he'd expected. Duo was concealing something.   
    
Then he hit the encryption on the files. He got the password on the twentieth try, but only because, unthinking,  he typed his frustration and accidentally hit enter. "Damnit" was definitely not a password Heero would have found by strategy.   
  
The files were a mission profile, maps, equipment lists... He'd never realized Duo could plan a mission. He'd  always done that himself -- not that he would have trusted Duo's mission plans. The structure of the plan was chaotic, but all the essential pieces were there. He recognized it. Oz was transporting Tauruses to Siberia. Duo was planning to take the land route. It made sense. Wing was better equipped for air combat. Heero had begun working on his own plans for the air route when he got his orders two days ago. He hadn't realized Duo would be there too. This must be a more important target than he had thought.   
  
A worm to erase files. Heero recognized the code. Duo had asked him for it ... two days ago. But there were a few twists added, bits and pieces that Heero knew were easy to find online -- changing screen headings in the school's computer system, mangling a few personal web pages and... _Reprogramming the phone extensions and crossing all the voice mail on the school's PBX?_ He shook his head. _Only Duo would do something like that._  
  
Then he saw that the worm would erase Duo's student records. It was coded to run in two days.   
  
Heero blinked. _He's leaving after this mission. Could that explain why he's been so subdued?_  
  
"Hey, get away from that!"   
  
He hadn't heard the door open. The internal clock told him Duo was skipping class. Heero waited as Duo closed the door and stalked over to the computer. "Those are mine!"   
  
"I gave you the worm."   
  
"Yeah, but I made it better. No one'll notice my files are gone until after they sort out the phone system mess. If then. And if they do it'll be way too late to find me."   
  
A distraction. Heero had never considered that. "Good strategy." Duo's hands twitched as Heero started making changes to the mission plan. "This is almost usable. I'll finish it for you."   
  
"Damn it, Heero! Do you really want to see me go that bad? Why didn't you just tell them not to assign me here?" He was angry and suddenly didn't care what Heero thought of him. "I thought we'd started something here, a little brothers-in-arms thing, if nothing else. I thought you might actually care that I was leaving. I thought you might actually miss me. I thought... I thought..." He stopped. He didn't know what he thought. He should have known that a perfect soldier wouldn't really give a damn about his partners and their comings and goings. It was easier not to care, he knew. _So why the Hell do I care?_ Heero had never wanted a partner in the first place.   
  
Heero was silent, watching him. Trying to understand why there was suddenly a little empty place inside him. The soldier didn't approve. Duo Maxwell was dangerous. Heero agreed, but wasn't sure Duo was a danger to him. The soldier said Duo Maxwell was a bad influence. Heero was less certain about that assertion.   
  
He put aside the argument with himself and said, "Orders." _I'm trying to help you complete your mission successfully and survive._  
  
Duo's mouth opened to protest, but no sound came out. Heero was right. He hated it when Heero was right like this, though. Orders were part of the Hell of war. Orders didn't give a damn about the people they used to fulfill themselves. He hated orders, though he followed them. _And which question was he answering?_ Duo wasn't sure. Maybe both. He sighed. "I'll, uh, finish it myself. I'm being reassigned to England. No need for Japanese History there."   
  
Heero climbed back into his bunk and watched, offering suggestions to fine-tune the plan. It annoyed him at first when Duo argued with him about some of them, but before they were done, he saw them improve with Duo's questioning. Heero had never built a mission plan with someone else. It was a -- different -- experience. When he wrote his own plans, his ideas were always right the first time. Now, he began to wonder as he looked over the final product he realized it was better than either of them could have produced alone. _Maybe we should have been doing it this way all along._ "Let's go over my plan," he said.   
  
Duo's mouth hung open for a moment, then the grin appeared, mixed with something else Heero didn't understand. "Sure thing, Heero."   
  
By the time they left the room for dinner, Duo was playing the loud-mouthed fool again. This time Heero knew it was an act, and wondered how often it had been an act in the past. It lasted through their weight training session the next morning, and while Duo packed.   
  
"Um, you'll probably need the bike more than I do. Give me a ride out to Deathscythe?" It was a quiet ride and a quiet farewell.   
    
When he got back to the room, Heero turned on the computer, preparing to copy his own mission plans to a disk to take to Wing, and found a message waiting for him.   
  
"Always remember what you put in the box." A drawing of Heero kneeling before the dresser, a box in his hands, had been scanned and attached. It was signed with "DM-195" and a little sketch of Duo's face.   
  
Heero stared at it.   
  
_So he was awake that morning._  
  
He went to his dresser and pulled out the box and the page Duo had drawn and studied it until the soldier broke through, pointing at the internal clock, telling him he'd missed one class and was late for another. He thought he knew what Duo might have been telling him. He didn't -- couldn't let himself -- believe it. _Not now._  
  
_Not now,_ the soldier agreed. _Not ever. You are a soldier. That's all there is for you._  
  
Heero closed the box and hid it in the drawer. Tomorrow he would be flying out to intercept the Taurus transports.   
  
+  
  
He woke, bolting upright in bed, heart racing, sweating, gasping for breath. As he concentrated, slowing the pounding in his chest, he listened for Duo's breathing, though he doubted that would tell him if he was asleep. Duo was too good at that little trick now.   
  
Nothing.   
  
He remembered he was alone.   
  
"Just a nightmare," he whispered before falling asleep again.


	10. Part 09 - Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> by LoneWolf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note from Dacia, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [A Little Piece of Gundam Wing](https://fanlore.org/wiki/A_Little_Piece_Of_Gundam_Wing), which closed in 2017. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after July 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [a little piece of gundam wing collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/alittlepieceofgundamwing/profile).

(Sometimes friendship surprises the most careful soldiers.)   
  
Duo woke, but kept his eyes closed and his breathing steady. He liked to think of that skill as one of Heero's little gifts to him. Maybe if they didn't know he was awake they wouldn't try to interrogate him again. As the rest of his brain slid into consciousness, he realized something wasn't right. Several somethings were not right.   
  
The faint tapping of fingers on computer keys stopped. _That's one of the somethings._  
  
"You're awake."   
  
Flat, cold voice. Pieces of recent memory fit together. "Heero!" Duo jerked up in the bed. His shoulders made it maybe an inch off the pillow before pain and exhaustion slammed him back to the mattress. He winced. At least it was soft. _Ah! That's was another something. No hard slab for a bed. ... Heero's here._ It was an oddly comforting thought.   
  
Footsteps coming closer. The ever-present aroma of cordite. A bullet being chambered. Duo's eyes popped open.  A familiar green tank top. Heero was standing over him holding a gun! Butt first finally registered.   
  
"I need to get more medicine for you. I'll be back in about two hours."   
  
Duo shook his head. "Heero ... don't leave me alone." He was too tired, too scared. The plaintive tone in his voice irked him. _I am a Gundam pilot, not a child!_  
  
Cold blue eyes narrowed, sizing up this obstacle to their mission. _Duo always needs everything spelled out for him._ "You have bruises over 70% of your body, three broken ribs, lacerated kidneys, hairline fractures in both hands and forearms, more cuts and abrasions than I wanted to count, most of which are infected..."   
  
Duo waited, eyes rolling impatiently while Heero recited the rest of the damage report. He was in worse shape than he had thought.   
  
"... You need the medicine. Take the gun. I'll be back in about two hours."   
  
"Damn it, Heero!!" Duo's voice came louder and angrier than he had expected. He charged ahead anyway. "I just spent a week in an Oz prison. The only people I saw or heard or touched were soldiers who were supposed to be interrogating me but were a lot more interested in getting payback for their buddies we killed back on Earth than finding out what I might know. Right now..." He drew a breath, hissing in pain halfway into it. _Damn ribs!_ "Right now, I need a friend I trust ... to be here with me so I'm not alone again."   
  
Reading Heero's expression was rarely a problem for Duo -- he'd learned all the little signs, was it only a few months ago?  But now Heero's face was shattered with stunned surprise. It took him a moment to understand what he was seeing. "Just sit down and... uh... just hold my hand so I know you're there." _Weak, weak, weak._ The begging child had returned.   
  
Heartbeats passed. The cracks in the ice froze again leaving no sign they had touched Heero's face. He nodded once, still staring at Duo, then hooked a chair over with his foot and sat, putting the gun on his lap. He had never forgotten the first thing Duo had ever taught him -- about butt-holsters and sitting positions. He laid an arm on the bed beside Duo.   
  
"Thanks," Duo sighed, taking the offered hand, giving a poor imitation of his usual grin.   
  
A violent shiver racked his body, drawing a moan of pain. Heero extricated his hand and pulled another blanket over Duo, then took Duo's hand again and slid their arms under the covers. "Don't go into shock. I can't treat that properly."   
  
_Cold, practical, that was Heero._ "Mmm." _That isn't all that's cold._ "Your hand is..." He blinked, realizing Heero's hand was touching bare skin on his hip. "Hey, where are my clothes?"   
  
"I threw them away. I bathed you three times before I got all the stink and blood off. Washed your hair, but it was a mess --"   
  
The braid! It wasn't beneath him! It wasn't beside him! Shinigami rose in Duo's voice, "You cut it off!?!" Then yelped and retreated as he tried to lift Duo's free hand to his head. Somewhere in the damage report, Heero had mentioned a cracked shoulder blade. That must be the one.   
  
Heero reached over Duo's head, pulled a bit of matted mass down and continued as if Duo hadn't said anything. "I hung it over the headboard. I figured you'd know what to do with it when you woke up."   
  
"Oh. ... Um... Yeah. ... Thanks." He eyed the hair Heero dangled before him. "Looks like at least two bottles of conditioner to fix that mess. Ugh. And at least an hour with a hairbrush. I feel tired again just thinking about it." A softer shiver shook him.   
  
"Drink." Heero held a glass with a straw for him. Duo drank. The water flowed down his throat, wetting tissue that had been dry too long.   
  
"Eat." Heero held a self-heating soup packet for him. Duo sucked, feeling the salt in the broth burn against cuts inside his mouth. It felt good, though. It made him feel warm inside. He'd been cold inside for a long time. Ever since Heero had died -- almost died. It wasn't a time he liked to remember. It was too full of despair. But Heero wasn't dead and he had rescued him from the prison and he was here now.   
  
"Sleep," Heero said, reaching for another blanket.   
  
"Mmm." Duo's eyes were already closed.   
  
Heero sat, watching him fall asleep. He had underestimated the loud-mouthed fool -- again. He never would have expected such determination from the boy, especially when he was in that kind of pain, especially not directed at him. _Especially not for a hand to hold._ "You trust me." He murmured, shaking his head. Why would anyone trust him?   
  
_Good question,_ the soldier whispered.   
  
"Mmmmmmmm."   
_  
Strange how "loud-mouthed fool" doesn't have quite the same bite in my mind,_ Heero thought. Then... _Friend?_ That thought occupied him much longer. The soldier didn't like it, but Heero didn't care. It was important, somehow. Duo's breathing had shifted to a slower rhythm by the time Heero said, "I almost did kill you in that cell. Would have if I hadn't remembered -- If you hadn't reminded me of --" He stopped. Whatever lost memory had Duo stirred within him had hidden itself again. Or had been hidden. He remembered -- or thought he did -- that, for a moment, that other him, the one he didn't understand, had stepped forward and pushed the soldier aside until it was too late to do anything but finish dragging Duo out of the prison. Had the soldier been tricked? The soldier was silent in reply.   
  
Duo's hand twitched and he began a soft snore. It had been months since Heero had heard the annoying sound. Now it seemed right.   
  
_Young and helpless,_ Heero thought, studying Duo's face. _Certainly not what I expect of the Angel of Death._ He sighed, confused. Time to get on with the mission. Duo needed medicine. And at least two bottles of conditioner, and a hairbrush.   
  
He tried to reclaim his hand, and discovered that Duo's grip, while not painful, wasn't going to budge without breaking the boy's hand. He considered. One more injury on the long list didn't seem like much, but Duo already had too much recovering to do. Breaking his hand would definitely wake him up, which would mean explaining...   
  
Heero amended his mission plan. He sat... and waited... and watched... wondering what it was Duo had reminded him of in that prison cell.   
  
Somewhere far beyond his awareness, a war-ravaged, blue-eyed child smiled for the first time in a decade.   
  
+  
  
Duo woke again. He was pretty sure a few hours had passed. He felt Heero's hand in his. Smiling, he opened his eyes and, for a moment, thought he glimpsed the faintest hint of --   
  
Ice. "Will you be OK alone now?" Heero asked. The cold metal of the gun was warmer than his ice.   
  
"Yes." Duo released Heero's hand. "Thanks, Heero." _Was it my imagination or was Heero smiling just then? Not that terrible smile he smiles in battle, but a real smile. And his eyes. They looked warm, like deep water instead of ice._ It was hard to say. For all that Duo had learned to read Heero's minimal expressions, he'd never seen him smile when he wasn't fighting. He had no context for comparison. He filed the sight away. If he ever saw it again, he would know. He hoped he'd see it again soon, because it was beautiful. For a moment, the memory stirred a whisper of hope in him.   
  
Heero stood, shrugged, nodded, shades of uncertainty played across his features, then he turned for the door. "There's soup on the table beside you. Eat. I'll be back in a couple of hours."   
  
"Ninmu ryoukai," Duo muttered to the closing door. Eat. He felt like he could eat a warehouse. Laying the gun on the bed beside him, he reached to the table, stifling a groan. _Couldn't make it easy for me, could you? And one soup pack probably isn't going to put a dent-- Naaniiii?_ There were three packets of soup on the table. Duo grinned and bit down on the end of the first packet to start the warm cycle. "Ninmu ryoukai!"


	11. Part 10 - Discoveries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> by LoneWolf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note from Dacia, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [A Little Piece of Gundam Wing](https://fanlore.org/wiki/A_Little_Piece_Of_Gundam_Wing), which closed in 2017. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after July 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [a little piece of gundam wing collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/alittlepieceofgundamwing/profile).

(Sometimes fools are caught unaware.)   
  
Duo felt much better after eating. The soup had been more broth than anything else, but reading the package he'd seen Heero had chosen it for nutritional content -- protein, electrolytes, vitamins and all the other good stuff that a beaten body needs to get better. _And it tasted a Hell of a lot better than what they were feeding me back in that cell._  
  
He was looking for patterns in the ceiling cracks, pretending they were clouds -- for the nine hundredth time -- when he heard footsteps at the door. He looked at the clock. Two and a half hours. It wasn't like Heero to be late. He slid the gun under the sheets and aimed at the door, bracing it against his hip to control the kickback. The cold metal reminded him of Heero's hand.   
  
The door opened.   
  
No one was there.   
  
Duo's eyes narrowed.   
  
A blur of motion, tucking and rolling across the floor. Duo tracked it with the gun, but green and black could only mean one person. "You sure know how to make an entrance Heero."   
  
"Where's the gun?" _Damn you, Duo! I gave it to you so you could defend yourself, not just lay there. Whydoyoucare? Idon'tknow?_  
  
"On you." Duo waggled the gun under the covers. He was rewarded with... yes, that was approval. "You just love having me point guns at you, huh? Um, next time maybe we should have a secret knock or something so I don't have to almost shoot you." He handed the gun to Heero, who reholstered it and walked back to the door.   
_  
Still using that butt holster and still got the butt for it,_ Duo thought. _I don't think I'm in quite the shape you left me in back on Earth, though._  
  
Heero brought in two bags of stuff and shut the door. He set them on the table beside his laptop computer and started pulling medical supplies out of one. When he'd picked out everything he wanted, he walked over to the bed and laid them out at the foot, bringing the aroma of cordite with him. Gauze, tape, scissors, antibiotic ointments, vials, syringes. Duo winced at the latter and almost missed the words delivered deadpan. "At least you've learned to check your target before you shoot."   
  
"Naaniiii??" Duo blinked. _Damn! That was almost a joke. Hell, for Heero that was a joke._ He looked at his friend, wondering if Oz had somehow captured and brainwashed him. _Nah, not in just two and a half hours._  
  
"You've learned to check your target before you shoot. You always lost on the pistol range because you shot friendlies." Heero looked at him, all business.   
  
_Maybe it wasn't a joke._  
  
"I should give you a shower before treating you." He pushed the medical supplies into a more compact arrangement, still neatly laid out. "Can you sit up?"   
  
Duo gave an experimental lift. "Better help me. Sorry."   
  
Heero pulled down the covers, exposing him. "You passed out in the shuttle on the trip back." He slid his arms under Duo's knees and back, raising and pivoting him to sit on the edge of the bed. "You've been unconscious for two days." The movement was so easy, so fluid, Duo wondered just how much weight he'd lost, then he felt the dense muscles, rock hard as Heero's arms supported him, and remembered Heero was a lot stronger than he looked. "I think you were comatose for about fifteen hours." Several minutes passed before Duo's sense of balance stabilized. "Not surprising, though. You took a severe beating."   
  
_He's changed,_ Duo thought as they sat there. "Beatings, " Duo corrected him. _When we were at school together, he was so detached I wondered if he really knew I was there. But now..._  
  
"Beatings," Heero agreed.   
  
_He seems to be actually aware of me._  
  
He almost passed out as Heero helped him stand. He managed to move his legs a bit, hobbling over to the bathroom, deadweight dragging on Heero's shoulders. Heero lowered him onto the toilet, turned on the shower, and stepped out, giving him a moment of semi-privacy. A few minutes later, Heero knocked on the door.   
    
Duo peered at the contents of the toilet beneath him. _Definitely peeing a little blood, but not much, and it's all dark. Nothing bleeding now._ He flushed the toilet. Heero entered. Naked. Duo's mouth dropped. Heero looked at him with a hint of... _uncertainty_ , Duo decided. He had never been entirely sure about Heero's various shades of uncertainty.   
  
"I don't have extra clothes." The usual winter voice, but soft.   
  
_You didn't think you'd be coming back from the mission,_ Duo filled in. _Same old Heero._  
  
"I don't want to get them wet while you shower."   
  
Duo decided it was a snow voice. Snow was supposed to be cold and soft and quiet all at once. He debated for a moment before deciding it was worth adding to his catalog, then he nodded, facing the fact that he was uncertain himself. He'd seen Heero naked many times before. Hell, he'd seen lots of people naked doing lots of things a lot more erotic than just standing there. So why did Heero naked just now, perfect though his body was, seem so captivating?   
  
He forgot about it as Heero lifted him and maneuvered them into the shower, ignoring Duo's yelps as the movements stretched unused muscles, broke scabs, and grated bones in damaged joints. Then Heero stood, supporting Duo, handing him soap and cloth. Washing all the places Duo couldn't reach.   
  
_A lot of them. Damn shoulder. Damn ribs.  
_  
The soapy cloth and firm hand felt good even though the soap stung the cuts on his back and the cloth pulled loose more of the scabs. He held on and relaxed, enjoying the feeling as Heero washed his back, his legs, his hair, applied conditioner.   
  
Duo opened his mouth but caught himself before he said anything. He remembered seeing the bottles in Heero's hand when he walked into the bathroom, but he'd been so unsettled by Heero naked that he'd forgotten about it before it registered on his consciousness. Heero had bought conditioner. And it smelled like the right kind. He sighed, luxuriating in the feeling of his hair beginning to untangle. _He's changed,_ Duo told himself again. The whole idea felt surreal, but no more so than the idea of Heero buying conditioner for him.   
  
He slipped into half-sleep. The next thing he knew the water was beginning to run cool and Heero was turning it off with his foot. Duo must have protested because Heero said, "Cold will tense your muscles. Bad for your ribs."   
  
_You're cold._ Duo's thoughts were a haze. _But you don't make me tense._  
  
He stayed in that unawake-unasleep state as Heero carried him back to the bed, laid him down and set about applying fresh ointment to his wounds with meticulous precision. Duo regained full consciousness a few minutes later when Heero sat him up and began to wrap his chest. It was a struggle, but he was able to balance on his own this time. "Damn, that's tight, Heero. I can barely breathe."   
  
"I found two more broken ribs."   
  
_For a total of five._  
    
"Your sternum is cracked too. You're lucky to be alive." He continued wrapping to draw the bones together.   
  
"That's me, lucky Duo Maxwell. Takes a beating and keeps on joking." He tried to laugh, but the tape around his chest limited him to a soft chuckle. It was better than nothing. "Uh, what're you gonna do with that," he asked as he watched Heero load a syringe with the contents of one of the vials.   
  
"Broad spectrum antibiotics." He filled another syringe from a second vial. "Broad spectrum antibiotics." he reached for the third vial, "Pain killers."   
  
"No!" Heero looked at him. Yes, it was definitely uncertainty this time. "Occasionally drunk is one thing, but I hate being drugged out of my mind."   
  
Heero nodded (Approval, Duo saw) and put the vial aside. "On your side." Heero moved to help him lay down.   
  
"Huh?"   
  
"These have to be given intramuscular." Duo looked at him. "Gluteal." A faint twitch of annoyance as Duo still didn't get it. "In the butt, Duo."   
  
"Oh." Duo let him lay him down. Heero's hand spread itself across his buttock, thumb and forefinger pulling skin tight between them. "Are you sure that isn't just an excuse to feel my ass?" He winced at his words just as the first needle hit. The hand moved to the other side and a few seconds later, the second needle followed. "Damn, Heero. Feels like a pair of rocks in my cheeks."   
  
"It'll pass in a day or two."   
  
Duo groaned.   
  
"They're single-dose."   
  
_At least I won't have to go through that again,_ he thought as Heero helped him get arranged in the bed and covered him up. _And why do I care if he puts his hand on my ass? He was just giving me a shot._ Duo didn't know. Probably he was worn out he wasn't thinking straight and that was making him uncomfortable with simple things.   
  
"Now sleep."   
  
"You hafta brush out my hair. ... No, really. If you don't brush it out it'll tangle again. And, uh, would you mind getting dressed first?"   
  
Heero glanced down at himself. He'd forgotten about that. He'd been too busy tending to Duo to notice. It was getting cool in the room, not that he was likely to catch cold, but he didn't want to argue with Duo right now. The fool needed to use his strength for recovering, not arguing. He dressed and brought over the brush, holding it beside his head like a hammer.   
  
_Damn, he even got the right kind of brush. This guy has some memory._ A vision of Heero holding a new comb the same way drew a smile. _But I bet he doesn't know how to use it._ "Hold it like this," Duo showed him. "Uh, try it on your hair first, to get the feel for it." Duo directed him until Heero had it right. "Y'know, a brush is probably better for your hair..."   
  
Cold eyes caught him, warning lurking in their depths.   
  
_Still touchy about the hair._ "Um, never mind. You've got it now."   
  
A silent nod and Heero moved the chair to the head of the bed and began working through Duo's hair. "Owww! Not so hard. You hafta be gentle when you find a tangle."   
  
"Hn. It's all a tangle." _Maybe I should have gotten another bottle of conditioner._ Heero continued brushing. Duo's interruptions became less frequent. Heero paused when he heard the soft snore begin. He couldn't help it if the antibiotics he'd acquired happened to have a mild sedative mixed in. Besides, Duo needed to rest.   
  
Almost alone again, he let loose a small sigh and continued brushing. He still didn't know why he hadn't killed Duo. The soldier hadn't liked it -- still didn't like it. The soldier had been harping about it off and on since the shuttle ride back from the prison. He set the problem aside as something that wouldn't be solved by direct reasoning and told the soldier to shut up and leave him alone. Brushing Duo's hair was not a mission that required the soldier's help.   
  
Brush. Brush. Brush.   
  
Brushing Duo's hair was relaxing. It gave his hands something to do while he dug through his memory, finding all the times he'd seen Duo braiding his hair, carefully assembling the proper steps and sequence. He decided he could learn to like brushing Duo's hair.   
  
Brush. Brush. Brush.   
  
Why had Duo been so nervous about his nakedness? They'd shared a room together for over a month and had seen each other in everything from suits to skin. Duo had never seemed nervous then. In fact, he'd usually worn as little as he could. Heero looked over the headboard at him. Maybe he was ashamed because he was out of shape. The fine form Heero had helped him build back then had faded, but no more than Heero would have expected after the recent captivity and abuse. He'd apparently kept at it after... that mission. Heero didn't like to think about that mission.   
    
Brush. Brush. Brush.   
  
_He called me a friend._ He waited for a moment, then added. _I wonder if it's true._  
  
The soldier didn't rise to the bait. It was unlike him to take an order from Heero without argument. Heero suspected he was waiting for a more opportune moment.   
  
Brush. Brush. Brush.   
  
The past few days spent taking care of Duo made perfect sense to him, except for the part about not killing him. Once he'd rescued the loud-mouthed fool, it was only logical that he'd clean him up, treat his wounds, and get him battle-worthy again. He couldn't just dump the body. It would be identified and draw Oz to this place. And Duo had contacts in the colonies. They might be able to get munitions, parts, supplies. Deathscythe was out there somewhere, damaged, but reparable. Duo in Deathscythe had proven himself worthy of the name Shinigami, much as part of Heero hated to admit it. The damned annoying loud-mouthed gaijin could be a valuable ally. The war against Oz wasn't over, regardless of what the colonies might think. And there wouldn't be any new orders for a while with the scientists captives of Oz. There was time for this interlude of peace. The reasons had piled up, convincing him the soldier was wrong about the whole situation.   
  
Brush. Brush. Brush.   
  
Heero wondered if accepting Duo as an ally meant trusting him. He didn't think he really trusted the other Gundam pilots -- anyone but himself, for that matter. But he wasn't sure he would know it if he did. Trust of others was something he understood only in the abstract.   
  
Brush. Brush. Brush.   
  
Right now, Duo was a risk. Heero considered his thoughts carefully. _Not an obstacle or a liability, just a risk, and a risk worth taking._ If he became a liability...   
  
Heero stopped brushing.   
_  
I'll make sure Duo is nothing worse than a risk. He called me a friend. That has to mean something. I think I would have killed him, but how can I know? Maybe he was right about that poem.  
  
Dangerous thoughts,_ the soldier whispered. _Soldiers don't have time for friends, and certainly not for childish poems._  
  
Heero knew he was right. The war may have paused, but it was not over. Maybe after Oz was defeated he could think those thoughts, but now they could only be obstacles. Heero chose not to eliminate these particular obstacles. Instead, he tied them neatly and put them into a little box in his mind where the memories of a flower, a scrap of fake fur, a red-tipped bullet, three sheets of notebook paper and a masterfully illuminated poem lived. Like those, the thoughts might one day be of use.   
  
Heero looked at Duo's hair. Smooth, shining, chestnut. He'd never really noticed the color before or the sharp scent of cinnamon that always lingered from Duo's conditioner. He carefully divided Duo's hair into three parts and braided it as his plan told him, then laid it on Duo's chest and listened to the snore that was at once annoying and right. He glanced at the door, double-checking the lock. Satisfied, he slid a hand around the gun on his lap, checked the safety, and closed his eyes.   
  
_A good risk,_ he thought. And slept.


	12. Part 11 - Wind of Heaven, Stuff of Earth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> by LoneWolf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note from Dacia, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [A Little Piece of Gundam Wing](https://fanlore.org/wiki/A_Little_Piece_Of_Gundam_Wing), which closed in 2017. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after July 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [a little piece of gundam wing collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/alittlepieceofgundamwing/profile).

(Sometimes fools are fools.)   
  
Duo woke to find a firm hand pressed over his mouth. He almost opened his mouth to bite it but recognized the cool touch and cordite will'o'th'wisp in his nose a split second before the hand moved away. He lay there, quiet, reminding himself for the umpteenth time that he wasn't in the cell anymore, he was hiding with Heero.   
  
"You were about to shout. It was just a nightmare."   
  
Duo said nothing, but his mind screamed at the memory. _Say it Heero! Say it! Say you have them too!_  
  
"More soup." It wasn't a question.   
_  
Damn you, Heero!_ Duo opened his eyes, forced a smile on his lips and took the soup packet, suddenly afraid. _When did I go from liking him to caring about him? Not love! No one survives Shinigami's love. I can't love Heero. I don't want him to die._  
  
The denials made him feel better. Love was dangerous. Love always ended in pain. Love always ended in death. He had given up on love years ago. Friendship. He could deal with friendship. Friendship was safe. He liked Heero. He cared about Heero. Those things meant he was Heero's friend. And he wanted Heero as a friend, not an enemy and not indifferent. Something else might have been nice once, but now the only other option was dead. It was one of the consequences of being a fallen angel. It was a consequence he had accepted. He was Heero's friend. That was enough.   
_  
It must have happened when we were partnered at that school on Earth. Probably when I decided to try to help him become human._ He shivered, though he wasn't cold. _I'd forgotten there are two ways to read the end of that poem. God! If You're there, please let it be the good ending, not--_ For the first time in his life, he couldn't bring himself to think the word "death".   
  
"Nani?"   
  
Duo flinched. "Nani mo nai koto." But it wasn't "nothing" and he didn't want to lie to his friend. "Just a left over bit of nightmare." That made it true enough.   
  
The answer seemed to satisfy Heero. He went into the bathroom and began putting soap and shampoo ... and conditioner in their place.   
  
Duo sucked on the soup packet. Nightmare childhood. Nightmare war. Nightmare life. Being the Angel of Death wasn't all it was cracked up to be. His hand wandered idly to his chest and began playing with his braid. When he was totally honest with himself -- which was rare -- he admitted that he'd much rather be a normal person who'd never heard of Oz or Colonies or Gundams or war. But it was too late for that. He was Duo Maxwell, Shinigami, pilot of Deathscythe, Defender or the Colonies, even if they were to damn stupid to figure out that they needed defending.   
  
He sighed as he swallowed the last of the soup. And who was he to complain? There, not twenty feet away was his friend who'd had a Hell of a lot worse life than he had, cleaning up the bathroom after him as if it were the most important thing in the world right then. He made a mental note to remember Heero whenever he started feeling sorry for himself. There was nothing like remembering that someone else was going through a darker stretch of Hell than you to make you stop wallowing in self-pity.   
  
He realized what his hand was doing. His braid! It was back! It gave him an excuse to push the dark thoughts away and smile. "Hey, Heero, did you do this?"   
  
Heero poked his head out of the bathroom to see Duo waggling the tip of the braid at him. Like Duo's snoring, it annoyed him, but it was a "right" annoyance. The loud-mouthed fool was getting better. "Hai." He went back to arranging the bathroom.   
  
"Not bad considering it was your first time."   
    
Something in Duo's voice told Heero he thought he'd said something funny. Heero finished arranging the bathroom. Turning back to the room, he knew he should say something. He searched memories as he walked back to his chair beside Duo's bed. _Ah. That was it._ "Arigatou."   
  
He'd seen that look on Duo's face once before -- when he'd asked him to help him with the plans before... that mission. Now it lasted longer so he could actually observe it. It reminded him of Duo's look when he understood a homework problem, only more -- as if he'd understood a hundred homework problems in the same instant. If he'd truly known the word "joy", he might have been able to describe it. All he knew was that he wanted to see it again.   
  
_There it was again!_ Duo almost shouted it aloud. _Tiny. If I'd blinked I'd've missed it. But he definitely smiled that time, and his eyes. God, they're even more beautiful when the ice melts._  
  
Silence fell, disturbed only by the hum of the colony outside the postage-stamp apartment. Duo squirmed. Heero shrugged and gave him the gun. "I need to get more food and clothes. I'll be back in an hour." He stopped when he reached the door and tapped once, paused, tapped twice, paused, tapped once. "That's the secret knock."   
  
"I got it."   
  
\------   
  
When he had returned from the supply run, Heero had turned on his laptop and begun typing. Now, fifteen hours later, he was still typing. Duo was tired. He knew Heero was tired too. "Hey, Heero, give it a rest, willya?"   
  
"Hn." He didn't seem to hear.   
  
"Heero. Hey, Heero! OI! Spandex Boy!"   
  
That got his attention. "Hnn!" Blue eyes snapped up, anger flickered briefly then vanished back into the cold, blue depths. "What, Duo?" A faint trace of the anger remained in his voice.   
  
"Um, you're kinda keeping me awake with your typing. Even perfect soldiers need to sleep now and then, and in this shape I'm far from perfect." He grinned.   
  
Heero watched him for a moment. _He's trying to be helpful. That means he's getting better. Good._ "Fine." He shut down the laptop, turned out the light above it and stretched out in his chair, eyes closed.   
  
"Ah, Heero? Chairs aren't exactly the best rest -- believe me, I know. Get in bed."   
  
One eye slitted open, watching him in the light filtering through the window shade. A colony was never truly dark, even when it was "night".   
  
Duo craned his head around, understanding dawning. "Ah, is this the only bed? I mean, uh, I don't want to put you out of your bed. I, uh, I think we could, ahm, squeeze in together." His voice squeaked.   
  
He didn't mind sleeping in the chair, but after three nights of it his body was feeling the stiffness and strain. The violet eyes were afraid, of... what? _What's wrong, Duo?_ "Are you sure?"   
  
_Ohshit. Damn your mouth, Duo._ But it was too late to stop now. "Ahhh, yeah. Just, uh, do you have a spare pair of shorts I can wear?"   
  
Heero didn't know why it mattered. Duo was acting strangely. He decided to let it lay. He opened a drawer in the small dresser beside the bed and produced a pair of grey cotton boxers.   
  
_Not silk. Oh well, it's better than nothing,_ Duo thought. Especially now that you've got him sleeping with you in this dinky bed. Heero pulled the sheet down. _Ohshit. Can't bend._ Duo had to let Heero pull the shorts up his legs, but was able to handle the last few inches himself. _God, I didn't realize it would be this bad. God, why is it so bad? He's just helping. After that shower you'd think this wouldn't matter._ But it did. Maybe because he was more aware now than he had been during the shower. As Heero climbed into bed next to him, Duo realized just how bad it was.   
  
Duo's injuries forced him to lay on his back. Which meant the only way Heero could fit in the bed was to lay on his side directly next to Duo with one arm under the pillow and the other laying across Duo's belly. Which meant his chin was resting on Duo's shoulder, his forehead was against Duo's cheek, and his crotch was against Duo's hand. Which meant Duo had to slip his arm under Heero's armpit so he wouldn't have his hand in Heero's crotch. Which meant he had to hold his arm tight along Heero's back to keep it from dangling off the bed. Which meant his hand was resting against Heero's butt. Which, for some reason, made him almost as uncomfortable as the original position.   
  
As he felt the cold fire of Heero's skin burning a permanent afterimage into his body, Duo knew he had just bought himself his own small piece of Hell, even if he couldn't understand why it was Hell or why he'd done it.   
  
He didn't sleep well that night.   
    
\------   
  
A week passed before, Duo could move around the room by himself for much more than a short, but exhausting trip to the bathroom. By then he was going crazy from sitting around with nothing to do. Heero had brought him some pencils and paper so he could draw. That was great -- really. But there was only so much drawing he could do in a day before his eyes went funny and his head started to hurt. That left him hours with nothing to do but lay or sit in the bed and watch Heero work. He started telling stories to fill the time. Heero diligently ignored him. Whenever he got tired of trying to get Heero to listen -- or pretending Heero was listening -- he laid in bed and looked at the ceiling. He was sure he could draw it from memory now.   
  
As Duo returned to normal, Heero retreated into cold quiet, almost as if he'd been compensating for Duo's silence. Now he spent more and more time working on the laptop, studying blueprints, making plans. That was part of Duo's dissatisfaction. Heero was cutting him out again. He finally decided to do something about it.   
  
"Uh, Heero. So what's our mission?" He leaned his forearms heavily on Heero's shoulders, peering over his head at the screen.   
  
"My mission. You're in no shape for it."   
  
"Oh yeah?" He clenched fists and made little jabbing motions at Heero's jaw. Heero didn't even look at him. His hand snaked up to Duo's shoulder and squeezed. "AAGH!" Duo fell to his knees, eyes watering with pain. "What'd'ya do that for?" he shouted.   
  
"To prove that you're in no shape for a mission right now." Cold, cold blue met Duo's eyes. "I don't want you to become a liability."   
  
_You mean you don't want to have to kill me. ... Wait a minute. Did you just say you don't want to have to kill me? You want me to live?_  
  
Heero was rewarded with another look of joy. There was no answering smile for Duo.   
  
_That’s OK, Heero. I guess you're the Perfect Soldier again now._ "How long?"   
  
"Four, maybe five days."   
  
_I should be able to take care of myself by then. He doesn't want to abandon me._ "Can I help?"   
  
It gave him something to do besides lay around and bitch all day.


	13. Ending 1 - Benedictus (Blessed) - barely shonen ai

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> by LoneWolf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note from Dacia, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [A Little Piece of Gundam Wing](https://fanlore.org/wiki/A_Little_Piece_Of_Gundam_Wing), which closed in 2017. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after July 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [a little piece of gundam wing collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/alittlepieceofgundamwing/profile).

(Sometimes soldiers and fools find peace.)   
  
Duo waited for a year to hear Heero tell him he trusted him, and when it came, he almost missed it because Heero made it sound like a joke. But for all the changes he had seen in his friend, Duo knew Heero would never joke about something like that.   
  
_Damn Dekim Barton! Damn him to the deepest pit in Hell! If I could light candles to guarantee his place there every church on Earth and the Colonies would be lit forever!_ Heero had been so close. _They_ had been so close. But Heero had had to pull the soldier close again, and that wasn't something easily undone. Duo knew far too well how hard it was to take off a comfortable cloak like the soldier, or the fool, or Death. Its fibers grew deep into your flesh and removing it tore skin, muscle and bone and left you raw and bleeding.   
  
He had waited.   
  
He didn't like waiting, but healing took time.   
  
Duo knew he had set something in motion that, like a Deist's clockwork universe, didn't need his constant attention. It had taken on a life of its own and, with hammers too small to feel, had reforged parts of Heero's Gundanium-hard heart. He had seen the results. He remembered the time Heero hadn't killed him. He remembered the time Heero had told him he trusted him. He knew it was true.   
  
Five years since the second war rebellion and he'd heard nothing from Heero.   
  
He watched from a distance and waited. He watched Heero struggle to settle down after the second war. He watched him grasp at the vestiges of normalcy -- fast-track degree in aviation that Heero had finished in six months instead of two years, an apartment, a motorcycle, a job. The job -- that was almost comical. Heero Yuy, ace Gundam pilot, hopping cargo jets between a dozen medium-to-small cities in Europe, all within two hundred miles of each other. A mission every day, but never any killing. Maybe the regular rituals of takeoff, flight and landing had helped him quiet the demons that had haunted them both -- still haunted Duo's dreams at times.   
  
The wedding surprised him. He had to admit it also disappointed him at the time. Then he worried when Heero starting flying a weekend air show circuit in addition to the air cargo.   
  
He'd been right to worry.   
  
When Heero's plane didn't pull out of a loop and crashed, Duo had called in most of his favors to get himself assigned as lead investigator, though it wasn't his field, and three of _his_ people as the investigation team. The official report said a bolt had sheared. Duo knew better. He had CGI-ed the cockpit video to hide the truth while his team altered flight data and planted the bolt.   
  
Five years and not a word. _That's at least partly my fault._  
  
After a week of non-stop cover-up, and many favors owed, he finally made it to the hospital. Heero was still unconscious, though the doctors had said he was out of the coma stage. He hadn't seen Heero that battered in a long, long time. Not since the first war. The room was empty except for Heero and him and the trappings of a seriously injured patient recovering.   
  
He just wanted to be near him. He crawled up onto the edge of the bed and curled up next to him, holding him.   
  
"You must be Duo Maxwell."   
  
He'd forgotten about Marissa. He'd been so lost in thought he hadn't heard her come in. When he turned his head to look at her he saw a tiny hint of jealousy, fear too, maybe, in her eyes. He wanted to fight her for Heero, but Heero didn't need that. He shook his head once and said, "I'm just returning an old favor."   
  
He moved to get up, but sensing his surrender, she said, "Stay there." She pulled a chair to the other side of the bed so she could face him as he lay next to his friend, her husband. "He talks about you sometimes. You were friends during the war. Tell me about him."   
  
Duo laughed. "I don't think Heero was anyone's friend during the first war -- but I was his best friend."   
  
They talked about the wars, but she didn't understand. They talked about now, which made more sense to both of them. They shared their catalogs of Heero's hidden emotions. "The doctor will be here soon," she said, interrupting.   
  
Duo understood. He got up and took the other chair, Heero between them. They'd chatted only a few minutes more when the doctor arrived, cited a bunch of tests, the upshot of which was that Heero should be awake in a few hours, then left.   
  
"I'll to be going," Duo told her. "I just needed to know he was going to be OK."   
  
She almost asked him to stay, he saw, but she was smart enough to know he wouldn't. Instead she asked him the question she'd wanted to ask first. "You loved him, didn't you?"   
  
He considered lying, but that wasn't his way, even after all the lies he'd instigated this past week. "I still do." He shrugged and handed her a copy of the accident report. "Make sure he reads that first thing when he wakes up. It's important."   
  
She said she would.   
  
_But five whole years, Heero?_  
  
Heero hadn't returned to the air show circuit, but there were still cracks in the facade. At times, Heero still failed to file flight plans or deviated from them for no good reason. Those made Duo worry still, especially when they happened while he was watching. They were always easier to handle when he could skim to the end of the flight log and see that Heero had landed safely. Oh, he knew Heero probably wouldn't do anything foolish -- he had a mission, even if it was just to land a load of boxes safely in the next city. But he doubted sometimes, and wished he could be there, just in case.   
  
Five years. _Did *_ we _* mean nothing to you Heero?_  
  
Of course, Duo had never told him he loved him. He hadn't been able to admit it to himself until after the second war. But he remembered the time Heero said he hoped he didn't have to kill him, in his own cold way. A hand held. Two bottles of conditioner and a hairbrush appearing unasked for. And a too-small bed shared in innocent comfort and the way it had made him feel. Duo knew the memories made no sense now that the world was "normal", but back then, they had been real. _Back then,_ Duo thought, _maybe that was Heero saying he cared for me. I hope._ Over time his love for Heero had changed. Maybe because he had finally admitted it to himself, even though it scared him. Maybe because seeing it for what it was had made him hope again, like Sister Helen's hugs and smiles had long ago.   
  
Five years of silence. He had learned to live with Heero's silence, but five years... _I don't have God's infinite patience. It's time to give the clockwork a little kick. I'm done waiting._  
    
He looked down at the two half-sheets of paper before him. These were the kick. On one, a sketch. On the back of it, two flight numbers. On the other a map leading to a set of coordinates and a time. A point in space-time. A point when Duo would find out... if he came.   
  
That scared Duo the most. Would he come? Did he really want him to come? He was walking onto their battlefield with no armor and no weapons. If Heero shot him he'd be defenseless, dead. Or might as well be, because--   
_  
Because you love him you fool. You love that cold bastard and have since you don't know when._ He dabbed the end of his braid to his eyes. _Boys don't cry,_ he reminded himself. Rejection would hurt, but he had other reasons to live. As he slipped the first scrap of paper into an envelope, he thought he heard the sound of wings.   
  
+  
  
The envelope had been in his box at the airport when he'd returned from his last hop of the day. No one knew how it got there. Heero checked it for trigger wires. It was small, but he'd taken out whole rooms with just that much C-10. Nothing. No bomb this time. He slid a fingernail under the top edge and sliced it open, then fished out the scrap of paper. Flight numbers -- tomorrow's Dublin run and... the local hop to Sligo. He knew all the flight numbers, even those he'd never flown. Duo's neat handwriting. Printed so there could be no mistakes.   
  
_He's up to something._  
  
He had a file box in his apartment with every article he'd been able to find on Duo. It was his way of keeping Duo close, keeping an eye on him, though it had taken him years to understand that. Duo was always doing foolish things. At least his job in the Preventers made him easy to track on the surface and gave Heero the clues he needed to dig deeper. He knew Duo never took vacations. He knew he had gotten himself stationed in Japan. He knew he had a small art gallery on the side, most of the work his own drawings and calligraphy. He'd bought one of Duo's haiku pieces -- indirectly so Duo wouldn't know. He'd wanted to have something to remind him of the page he'd lost in the war.   
  
Duo had been avoiding him. Duo, the first person he'd ever cared about -- even before he'd learned to care about himself. He knew secrets about Duo that even Duo hadn't figured out, and he suspected Duo knew the same about him.   
  
_How could he just turn it off like that?_  
  
The war was over and, after a short time of decompression, everyone was suddenly going their own ways and the world was changing so fast they had to hold on tight just to stay on it. And before things could settle down again, there was the second war, just a small skirmish really, but it had dredged up so many painful pasts. Maybe it had just been too much change too fast. Maybe that was why the five of them had grown apart after the wars. Maybe that was why he had been so miserable. That's what he'd thought then.   
  
He'd found the truth when he hit bottom.   
  
He hated his job. His marriage with Marissa was a shambles. He hated himself. He was flying the air show and it seemed so easy to miss the pull-up. Unfortunately, or so he'd thought when he woke, even crashing a plane into the ground wasn't enough to kill him. Then he caught that particular scent of cinnamon. "Duo?" he whispered.   
  
"He left about an hour ago." Marissa's voice. She leaned over and kissed him, mingling her own soft, daisy scent with the cinnamon. "I'm glad you're back."   
  
"Hn."   
  
"I found him laying next to you. 'Returning an old favor,' he said. He seems like a nice guy." There was something in her tone he knew was important but he didn't understand it. She held out the folder. "He said to be sure you read the accident report. A bolt sheared. It wasn't your fault."   
  
"I'm tired, Marissa. Leave it and I'll read it later. Go home and get some sleep."   
  
"Heero, just tell me when want some time alone." He'd hurt her again. "I'll go get something to eat. I'll be back in an hour."   
  
_Bastard,_ he cursed himself after she left. _You shouldn't beat her up so. It isn't her fault your life is Hell._  
    
He pushed it aside and read the report. It was a lie. He'd only known Duo to lie once. Duo hadn't signed the report, though. Maybe that was his out. Then he found the sticky-note Duo had hidden for him on the fifth page of the raw data from the bolt shear analysis. Any layman but Heero would have stopped reading long before then. It was a drawing of him right before the crash, obviously from the video, and words. "Get off the air show circuit or I'll kill you myself, you bastard." Another note beside it showed a sketch of Marissa, hastily drawn, with words from her mouth, "Aishiteru, baka."   
  
He was still looking at it when Marissa returned. "Done yet?" she asked.   
  
"Aa." He nodded.   
  
"Heero, I've been... I ... I hate to ask you this, but--"   
  
"I'll quit flying air shows." When he said it, her face reminded him of Duo's face when he'd said "Arigatou" for a simple compliment.   
  
It made him think.   
  
A week after he got out of the hospital he'd hacked his way into the Preventers' private network. He didn't know what he was going to do, maybe just read all Duo's files to be near him again, or maybe delete them all, just so Duo would know he was angry. Then he found the encrypted files. He downloaded them, wondering what Duo had that would need encryption buried that deep in a secure network. At home, he set about cracking them.   
  
The password wasn't "Damnit" this time. It took him a month to break the encryption on the key. He was surprised to find its bit pattern was a picture of him. Smiling. DM195. He wondered when that had happened. He read the files and saw the pictures. He was being watched. It made him angry again.   
  
Then he saw where Duo had cleaned up behind him, not just after the crash, which could have gotten him permanently grounded. Failing to file a flight plan in the air freight business was grounds for termination. On those particular days he'd wanted to be fired. He'd changed his mind once he was in the air. Everything seemed different after he got off the ground and Earth stretched out distant below him. Looking at it from 30,000 feet, he could believe in peace. Strange how he hadn't been able to see it from space.   
  
No one had ever called him on the flight plans. He had thought maybe, knowing who he was, they blamed it on the wars -- post-traumatic stress, battle fatigue or any of the dozen other names for the mild-to-serious insanity that soldiers suffered after going through their own bitter piece of Hell in a war. He had thought they let him stay on out of respect or maybe pity. He didn't want either, but when he landed he always wanted the job, so he accepted it.   
  
But he had been wrong. It was Duo watching out for him. Filing the flight plans for him and faking the timestamps. Gifting him with those bits of a normal life that had become so precious to his returning sanity.   
  
_So what is he up to now?_ He turned the paper over. _Ah._  
  
A picture of a winged figure with a yard-long braid leading a dark-haired boy into the moonrise. DM202. This time Duo hadn't pretended to disguise who they were. He didn't have to. Heero closed his eyes for a moment, pulling his perfect copy of the original from the box in his mind.   
  
He'd unwrapped those memories the night he'd finally opened Duo's secret files and found his own deep, blue eyes staring back at him. For a while, he'd thought he was back in the war, when the reek of burning hydraulics and grinding metal had closed his throat and ripped his eyes just that same way. But it had been neither of those things. And even they could not have explained why his face was wet. He'd almost called Duo then, but something stopped him. A few hours later Marissa had found him. He'd tried to explain, but she hadn't really understood it all. Over the following weeks and months the memories had found others he'd thought he'd forgotten. Some good, some bad. But even the bad memories had their good parts -- now. He'd finally understood that Duo wasn't ready for him anymore than he was ready for Duo.   
  
Just as mastering Zero had shown him the path to the end of the war, mastering his memories showed him the path to the humanity that he had denied himself. It took over a year, but eventually he and Marissa remade their relationship into something more like what it should have been. They weren't perfect together, but he and Duo hadn't been perfect together either. There were a few things that Marissa couldn't provide, some things she could never understand or share. But there were only four other people in the world he might talk to about those things, and what she gave was enough. He was content. The soldier rested lightly on his shoulders now.   
  
He walked to the office and checked the roster for the Ireland run. Good. Harris hated flying over water. He'd trade in a heartbeat. Richleau, the copilot, was a newbie suckup. The boy would look the other way when Heero stowed his motorcycle in the hold. _Hell, he'd probably kiss my ass just to say he'd been copilot to the great Heero Yuy._ He could hear the boy's fake French accent in his mind. It always made him ill. He'd dump the controls to the boy, let him get a few hours on his log. That should keep him busy enough that Heero wouldn't have to endure much of his inane conversation.   
  
He called Harris, then the Dublin office. He told the receptionist what he wanted and she offered to take care of it for him. She knew just the place and it gave her an excuse to go shopping after work today. He'd accepted, thanking her. It would save him time tomorrow.   
  
_Time to go to home,_ he thought. _I hope Marissa understands._ He knew she would. As he walked out to the parking lot and the waiting motorcycle, his lips twitched into a faint smile. She also understood why he still "forgot" to file flight plans at least four times a year.   
  
+  
  
Duo sat, knees to chest, waiting. He had delivered the second half of his kick to the Sligo office that morning, wearing his uniform and making lots of noise to the receptionist about being sure to give it to "Captain Heero Yuy -- H-e-e-r-o Y-u-y -- that's Heero Yuy", just as soon as he got in from his flight. He'd told her the flight and the ETA at least three times. The receptionist wouldn't forget him any time soon.   
  
Heero was over two hours late. _It isn't like him to be late. He isn't coming. Damn that bastard. He really doesn't care about me. Boysdon'tcry. That's a lie! A damn lie!_ Duo's head fell to his knees and he wept. He almost didn't hear it until it was too late.   
  
+  
  
"Duo? ... Duo, I'm here." _Why? Why here in the middle of nowhere in Ireland?_  
  
He'd delayed the flight from Dublin to Sligo, telling Richleau the ILS was acting up and leaving the boy to supervise repairs while he took care of his business in Dublin. When the receptionist in Sligo gave him the second note he was already late. _Damn, Duo, you should have given me more time._ After leaving the main road, he'd raced his motorcycle along a punishing, ever-narrowing country lane for an hour. He'd stopped when he reached Duo's motorcycle -- who else would have a black bike with Preventers logos on it this far out? He'd walked the last three miles of the map into the forest until he'd reached this clearing. He looked at his watch. The GPS readout said he was in the right place, though Duo's coordinates covered half a hectare. He didn't need to see the chronograph to know he was two and a half hours late.   
  
"Duo?" Where was he? Maybe he'd guessed wrong. "If this is a trick Duo..." The soldier leaped on the opportunity and clung to him like skin. "I _will_ kill you." The soldier was afraid. He sensed Death lurking nearby. Heero could smell the fear and pushed him away.   
  
"Heero!" Faint in the distance. Duo's voice. Crunching underbrush. The sounds getting louder. Heero turned to face the source of the noise. He wasn't prepared for the flying tackle. They crashed to the ground in a tangle of limbs and braid, Heero flat on his back. He was glad the soldier had lost the battle about the gun back at the bike, otherwise the landing might have been painful.   
  
"Hn. Are you trying to break my ribs?"   
  
"Uh, no," but Duo relaxed his hold, pulling back to look him in the face. Heero saw the look, and connected it with a word Marissa had taught him -- joy. He didn't understand how that fit with the tear-tracks Duo hadn't quite wiped away.   
  
Duo took his own hope from Heero's faint smile. "I, um, thought you weren't coming."   
  
_That explains the tears._ "I'm sorry Duo."   
  
"Why were you so late?"   
  
"Delays in Dublin."   
  
Duo's brow wrinkled, doubtful. But reading Heero's face had always been a challenge, and now all the old, familiar clues failed him in the cloud-wisped starlight. "Well, uh, c'mon anyway. There's still time." He disentangled himself and stood, offering Heero a hand. Still the green tank top under an old green denim jacket and over dark blue jeans. "Huh! Shades of Spandex Boy." He winced as he heard it. The old taunt was not what he wanted.   
  
"And you, Shinigami?"   
  
As Heero stood, Duo looked and realized he'd traded his uniform for black jeans and black button-up, only half buttoned, over a white T-shirt. "Old, bad habits, I guess," he frowned.   
  
Heero removed a stray leaf from inside his jacket, surprised to find Duo was a good six centimeters taller than him, then ordered, "Lead," evoking a better memory.   
  
Duo held out his hand. His smile returned when Heero took it.   
  
They walked east up a steep, rocky incline, the night sounds of the forest breathing life all around them. Duo finally broke their silence. "Don't you want to know where we are?"   
  
"Yes."   
  
"Then why don't you ask?"   
  
"If I wait long enough you'll tell me without--" Heero stopped walking. He didn't want to fall into the well-rehearsed maneuvers of the war they had waged against themselves for far too long. That wasn’t why he'd come. Duo had left "Uh" and "Um" in the clearing. He knew he should leave the soldier there too. It was hard, though. The soldier was afraid to be left behind. Heero gave him no choice. He would face this encounter with Duo alone.   
  
The night seemed different. Brighter. More alive. If he'd understood the word, he might have said "magical". "Where are we, Duo?" he asked as he took a step and they resumed their walk. He thought he knew, but Duo wanted to tell him.   
  
"Sleuth Wood." Silence, then, "You'd guessed."   
  
"Just now."   
  
They walked for another twelve and a half minutes. Heero hadn't known the internal clock wasn't part of the soldier. They came to a rock-strewn drop-off overlooking a lake.   
  
"Why are we here?" He knew, but Duo wanted -- needed -- to tell him that too.   
  
Minutes passed. He looked at Duo, but his friend stared out to the cloud-hid east, waiting. _Friend_. The word thrummed with possibilities. _When did I stop thinking of Duo as a "boy"? Were either of us ever boys?_ He brushed aside the darker memory and waited.   
    
The clouds broke before a distant wind, revealing the full moon, white and grey above them. The moonlight laid its path across the sky and the trees and the sand and the lake to rest in front of them. Heero's breath caught in his throat. He hadn't expected that. "You couldn't have planned that."   
  
"I took a chance," Duo whispered, awed by the magic he had wrought. "Heero, I love you."   
  
Heero knew Duo was looking at him, but he kept his eyes on the moon as he said, "You talk in your sleep." A passing remark, but Duo knew he never said anything in passing.   
  
"What did I--" Duo was suddenly still. Wary, Heero thought.   
  
"Especially when you're having nightmares about your childhood..." He met the violet eyes. This was going to be harder than he'd thought, but he'd learned that rebirth was painful. "... when you've been badly beaten and you're sharing an too-small bed with me..."   
  
Duo closed his eyes, waiting for the hammer.   
  
"... and you want me so bad it hurts, but you're afraid to tell me you love me because everyone you love dies."   
  
_Oh, damn, damn, DAMN your mouth Duo. You can't even keep it shut when you're asleep. Damn, God, why did you curse me so? Why? Why does my damn mouth always have to go off at the wrong time?_ He felt the tears coming back. _Damn! Boysdon'tcry. Boysdon'tcry. LIAR!_  
  
"Heero, I--"   
  
"Shut up, Duo." Soft, almost warm. Duo's eyes opened to find a moonlit smile only he and Marissa would recognize as a smile.   
  
"I came when you asked." _Ah, there's joy again._ Heero liked seeing joy. It was time to rebuild. "Sit."   
    
Duo sat, then Heero sat behind him and pulled him against his chest. Duo was stiff against him. "Duo, relax. I just want to be close to a friend." That helped.   
  
"I'm getting married in two months."   
  
"I know. Suzuko sent us an invitation last week." He took the end of Duo's braid in his hands. "Tell me about her."   
  
They talked about Suzuko and Marissa and the wars and the good times they hadn't known were good until now. Heero played with Duo's braid as clouds hid and revealed the moon and Duo leaned against him, savoring the whiff of cordite in the air. Finally Duo said, "I used to want you, y'know, sexually." He stopped.   
  
"And now?"   
  
"I still could, but..." Duo shrugged, struggling to find the words. "I need someone-- Suzuko doesn't understand the nightmares."   
  
Heero nodded. "Marissa doesn't understand why I cry sometimes when I see a little girl with a dog."   
  
"Or why telling her I love her makes me afraid."   
  
"Or what really happened in that crash."   
  
"Or what keeps me in Japan." Duo sighed. "Some of the memories are good. I remember your sonnet."   
  
"I have one of your haikus at home. The one about me."   
  
"Which one about you?" He grinned.   
  
Heero laughed. Not the horrible laugh from the war, but a soft, staccato chuckle. Duo was so surprised he almost forgot to memorize the sound, adding it to his catalog of Heero. "Blue ice and hope. Marissa can't read it, but she can see my face in the kanji."   
  
Duo grimaced. "That was when I still thought we could be lovers."   
  
"We can still love each other. 'Helping others we help ourselves. Loving others, we learn to love ourselves.'"   
  
Sister Helen's words. _And I didn't even know I needed help._ "How much did I say in my sleep?"   
  
"Not enough to fix me then." _If you had Marissa and Suzuko would be out of luck..._ Heero didn't say it. He didn't want to torture Duo or himself with the possibilities. That future was a past future now. "But too much for me to forget." There were other futures they could choose. He pushed a flat, square box into Duo's hands. "The other reason I was late. Something else you said."   
  
Duo opened the box. Feathered wings worked in silver spread the width of both his hands. Heero turned them over, showing him the clasp that would hold them in his hair and reading the words he'd had engraved. "Wings for an Angel."   
  
He felt Duo tense against him again. "Heero?"   
  
"Duo, you're Catholic?"   
  
"Well, sort of, yeah." Duo turned to look at him, confused.   
  
"And you don't know that 'angel' means 'messenger'?" He laughed again at the look on Duo's face. He hadn't. "You always brought me a message of hope or joy or love to make me keep living when I wanted to die -- and to make me look for something better -- even if I didn't always understand it. I need your messages. Marissa loves me and I love her, but there are some things she can't understand." He shrugged. "She trusts me enough to let me find someone who can. She knows I won't leave her."   
  
"Oh. I thought--"   
  
"Shut up, Duo. I know what you thought." He let the smile take away the sting of the words. "Just sit with me and be my friend." He watched the moon creeping up the sky. "Do you remember the time you lied to me?"   
  
"I never lie!"   
  
"The sonnet."   
  
"Oh, that." Duo leaned back against him again. "I didn't think you'd understand."   
  
Heero sighed. "I wouldn't have, but I do now."   
  
They sat and talked, watching the moon and stars until the sun banished the night shadows and left the Earth with a last morning kiss and the breath of a new day.   
  
"Marissa thinks you and I need each other. She wants me to get a transfer to Japan."   
  
"Marissa is a smart woman." Duo smiled. "You don't deserve her." He'd meant the latter as a joke, but Heero said, "I know I don't."   
  
Heero stood and offered Duo a hand. "Help us find an apartment?"   
  
Duo pulled himself up and stood thinking. "Something better, maybe. Suzuko's parents have a house for sale a few blocks from our place. It's four or five hours driving to Haneda, but there's a small airport a few minutes away. You could fly to work and miss the traffic."   
  
Heero nodded. "Ryoukai."   
  
end


	14. Ending 2, Part 1 - Sans Dire (Without Saying) - yaoi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> by LoneWolf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note from Dacia, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [A Little Piece of Gundam Wing](https://fanlore.org/wiki/A_Little_Piece_Of_Gundam_Wing), which closed in 2017. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after July 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [a little piece of gundam wing collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/alittlepieceofgundamwing/profile).

(Sometimes soldiers and fools find each other.)  
  
Duo waited for a year to hear Heero tell him he trusted him, and when it came, he almost missed it because Heero made it sound like a joke. But for all the changes he had seen in his friend, Duo knew Heero would never joke about something like that.  
  
_Damn Dekim Barton! Damn him to the deepest pit in Hell! If I could light candles to guarantee his place there every church on Earth and the Colonies would be lit forever!_ Heero had been so close. _They_ had been so close. But Heero had had to pull the soldier close again, and that wasn't something easily undone. Duo knew far too well how hard it was to take off a comfortable cloak like the soldier, or the fool, or Death. Its fibers grew deep into your flesh and removing it tore skin, muscle and bone and left you raw and bleeding.  
  
He had waited.  
  
He hated waiting, but healing took time.  
  
Duo knew he had set something in motion that, like a Deist's clockwork universe, didn't need his constant attention. It had taken on a life of its own and, with hammers too small to feel, had reforged parts of Heero's Gundanium-hard heart. He had seen the results. He remembered the time Heero hadn't killed him. He remembered the time Heero had told him he trusted him. He knew it was true.  
  
Two and a half years since the second war and he'd heard nothing from Heero.  
  
He watched from a distance and waited. He watched Heero struggle to settle down after the second war. He watched him grasp at the vestiges of normalcy -- fast-track degree in aviation that Heero had finished in six months instead of two years, an apartment, a motorcycle, a job. The job -- that was almost comical. Heero Yuy, ace Gundam pilot, hopping cargo jets between a dozen medium-to-small cities in Europe, all within two hundred miles of each other. A mission every day, but never any killing. Maybe the regular rituals of takeoff, flight and landing had helped him quiet the demons that had haunted them both -- still haunted Duo's dreams at times.  
  
He worried when Heero starting flying a weekend air show circuit in addition to the air cargo. When Heero's plane didn't pull out of a loop and crashed, Duo had called in most of his favors to get himself assigned as lead investigator, though it wasn't his field, and three of _his_ people as the investigation team. The official report said a bolt had sheared. Duo knew better. He had CGI-ed the cockpit video to hide the truth while his team altered flight data and planted the bolt.  
  
Two and a half years and not a word. _That's at least partly my fault._  
  
After a week of non-stop cover-up, and many favors owed, he finally made it to the hospital. Heero was still unconscious, though the doctors had said he was out of the coma stage. He hadn't seen Heero that battered in a long, long time. Not since the first war. The room was empty except for Heero and him and the trappings of a seriously injured patient recovering.  
  
He just wanted to be near him. He crawled onto the edge of the bed and curled up next to him, holding him.  
  
"Excuse me, sir."  
  
He'd been so lost in memory that he hadn't heard the nurse come in. "I'm just returning an old favor," He said, getting up. His uniform seemed to make her rethink her next statement. "Is he going to be OK?" he asked.  
  
As she looked at him deciding what to say, he saw pity in her face and realized he was the only person who had come to see Heero. That hurt. "The doctor will be here in a few minutes," she said and left as quietly as she had come.  
  
Duo sat in the chair, looking at the body laying on the bed, thinking about how miserable his friend's life must be. When the doctor arrived, Duo used his role as lead investigator to "encourage" the doctor to answer his questions. In the end, she cited a bunch of tests, the upshot of which was that Heero should be awake soon, then left.  
  
After a soft kiss on Heero's lips, Duo followed her. He wanted to stay, to be there when Heero woke up, but Heero had a lot of things to figure out for himself first. He stopped at the nurse's station and handed the nurse he'd seen earlier a copy of the accident report. "Make sure he reads that first thing when he wakes up. Tell him I said it's important."  
  
"Who should I say--"  
  
"He'll know. Just give him the report."  
  
_Two and a half years, Heero._  
  
Heero hadn't returned to the air show circuit, but there were still cracks in the facade. At times, Heero still failed to file flight plans or deviated from them for no good reason. Duo still worried, especially when they happened while he was watching. They were always easier to handle when he could skim to the end of the flight log and see that Heero had landed safely. Oh, he knew Heero probably wouldn't do anything foolish -- he had a mission, even if it was just to land a load of boxes safely in the next city. But he doubted sometimes, and wished he could be there, just in case.  
  
Two and a half years. _Did *_ we _* mean nothing to you Heero?_  
  
Of course, Duo had never told him he loved him. He hadn't been able to admit it to himself until after the second war. But he remembered the time Heero said he hoped he didn't have to kill him, in his own cold way. A hand held. Two bottles of conditioner and a hairbrush appearing unasked for. And a too-small bed shared in innocent comfort and the way it had made him feel. Duo knew the memories made no sense now that the world was "normal", but back then, they had been real. _Back then,_ Duo thought, _maybe that was Heero saying he cared for me. I hope._ Over time his love for Heero had changed. Maybe because he had finally admitted it to himself, even though it scared him. Maybe because seeing it for what it was had made him hope again, like Sister Helen's hugs and smiles had long ago.  
  
Two and a half years of silence. He had learned to live with Heero's silence, but two and a half years... _I don't have God's infinite patience. It's time to give the clockwork a little kick. I'm done waiting._  
   
He looked down at the two half-sheets of paper before him. These were the kick. On one, a sketch. On the back of it, two flight numbers. On the other a map leading to a set of coordinates and a time. A point in space-time. A point when Duo would find out... if he came.  
  
That scared Duo the most. Would Heero come? Did he really want him to come? He was walking onto their battlefield with no armor and no weapons. If Heero shot him he'd be defenseless, dead. Or might as well be, because...  
  
It was a dangerous thing to think. It was deadly to say. None had ever survived it.  
  
"Because I love him. (God, please don't kill him.) I love his cold soul and it's hidden warmth. (God, please don't kill him.) I love his face when it looks at me with expressions only I can read. (God, please don't kill him.) I love helping him find things he never knew existed in him. (God, please don't kill him.) Hell, I even love the way he looks when he's holding a gun on me. (God, please don't kill him.) And I want his body, his heart, his soul. (God, please don't kill him.) But if he can't accept that, just let me be near him again. (God, if one of us has to die, kill me.)"  
  
It was the first time he'd ever said it aloud. He waited for a moment. Nothing happened. As often, he wasn't sure how his prayers would be answered. He sighed. _Duo, you fool, you're smitten with that cold bastard and have been since you don't know when._ He dabbed the end of his braid to his eyes. _Boys don't cry,_ he reminded himself. As he slipped the first scrap of paper into an envelope, he thought he heard the sound of wings.  
  
+  
  
The envelope had been in his box at the airport when he'd returned from his last hop of the day. No one knew how it got there. Heero checked it for trigger wires. It was small, but he'd taken out whole rooms with just that much C-10. Nothing. No bomb this time. He slid a fingernail under the top edge and sliced it open, then fished out the scrap of paper. Flight numbers -- tomorrow's Dublin run and... the local hop to Sligo. He knew all the flight numbers, even those he'd never flown. Duo's neat handwriting. Printed so there could be no mistakes.  
  
_He's up to something._ He'd been waiting for something like this for weeks now.  
  
He had a file box in his apartment with every article he'd been able to find on Duo. It was his way of keeping Duo close, keeping an eye on him, though it had taken him two years to understand that. Duo was always doing foolish things. At least his job in the Preventers made him easy to track on the surface and gave Heero the clues he needed to dig deeper. He knew Duo never took vacations. He knew he had gotten himself stationed in Japan. He knew he had a small art gallery on the side, most of the work his own drawings and calligraphy. He'd bought one of Duo's haiku pieces -- indirectly so Duo wouldn't know. He'd wanted to have something to remind him of the page he'd lost in the war.  
  
Duo had been avoiding him. Duo, the first person he'd ever cared about -- even before he'd learned to care about himself. He knew secrets about Duo that even Duo hadn't figured out, and he suspected Duo knew the same about him.  
  
_How could he just turn it off like that?_  
  
The war was over and, after a short time of decompression, each of them was going his own direction and the world was changing so fast they had to hold on tight just to stay on it. And before things could settle down again, there had been the second war, just a small skirmish really, but it had dredged up so many painful pasts. Maybe it had just been too much change too fast. Maybe that was why the five of them had grown apart after the wars. Maybe that was why he had been so miserable. That's what he'd thought then.  
  
He'd found the truth when he hit bottom.  
  
He hated his job. He hated his life. He hated himself. He was flying the air show and it seemed so easy to miss the pull-up. Unfortunately, or so he'd thought when he woke, even crashing a plane into the ground wasn't enough to kill him. He caught that particular scent of cinnamon. "Duo?" he whispered.  
  
"Mr. Yuy?"  
   
He tried to jump up, but couldn't.  
  
"Relax, Mr. Yuy," the nurse said. "You were in a bad accident."  
   
"Hn." _The only accident is that I'm still alive._  
  
"There was a young man from the Preventers here earlier. He had a long braid. I found him laying next to you. 'Returning an old favor,' I think he said."  
  
"Duo," Heero whispered. Four strands of soft, chestnut hair caught on the pillow.  
  
"Oh, he said you'd know who he was." She held out a folder, then laid it on the bed beside his hand. "He said to be sure you read the accident report, that it was important."  
  
The nurse released the restraints that held him in the bed and set about checking vitals, a simple reflex test and the other rituals that defined her job. "If you feel up to it, I can get dinner here in about an hour."  
  
"Yes." He was hungry. The internal clock, faithful as ever, told him he'd been unconscious for a week.  
  
After the nurse left, he read the report. It was a lie. He'd only suspected Duo of lying once, and he'd come to believe that maybe it hadn't been quite a lie. Like now wasn't quite a lie. Duo hadn't signed the report. That was his out. Then he found the sticky-note Duo had hidden for him on the fifth page of the raw data from the bolt shear analysis. Any layman but Heero would have stopped reading long before then. It was a drawing of him right before the crash, obviously from the video, and words. "Get off the air show circuit or I'll kill you myself, you bastard."  
  
He was still looking at it when the nurse returned with dinner. He set the report aside and ate. The food in his stomach made him feel somewhat alive again. He collected the cinnamon-scented hairs from his pillow and put them in the folder with the accident report. "I'll try, Duo."  
  
A week after he got out of the hospital, angry again and slightly drunk, he'd hacked his way into the Preventers' private network. He didn't know what he was going to do, maybe just read all Duo's files to be near him again, or maybe delete them all, just so Duo would know he was angry. Then he found the encrypted files. He downloaded them, wondering what Duo had that would need encryption buried that deep in a secure network. At the apartment, he set about cracking them.  
  
The password wasn't "Damnit" this time. It took him a month to break the encryption on the key. He was surprised to find its bit pattern was a picture of him. Smiling. DM195. He wondered when that had happened. He read the files and saw the pictures. He was being watched. It made him angry again.  
  
Then he saw where Duo had cleaned up behind him, not just after the crash, which could have gotten him permanently grounded. Failing to file a flight plan in the air freight business was grounds for termination. On those particular days he'd wanted to be fired. He'd changed his mind once he was in the air. Everything seemed different after he got off the ground and Earth stretched out distant below him. Looking at it from 30,000 feet, he could believe in peace. Strange how he hadn't been able to see it from space.  
  
No one had ever called him on the flight plans. He had thought maybe, knowing who he was, they blamed it on the wars -- post-traumatic stress, battle fatigue or any of the dozen other names for the mild-to-serious insanity soldiers suffered after going through their own bitter piece of Hell in a war. He had thought they let him stay on out of respect or maybe pity. He didn't want either, but when he landed he always wanted the job, so he accepted it.  
  
But he had been wrong. It was Duo watching out for him. Filing the flight plans for him and faking the timestamps. Gifting him with those bits of a normal life that had become so precious to his returning sanity.  
  
_So what is he up to now?_ He turned the paper over. _Ah._  
  
A picture of a winged figure with a yard-long braid leading a dark-haired boy into the moonrise. DM199. This time Duo hadn't pretended to disguise who they were. He didn't have to. Heero closed his eyes for a moment, pulling his perfect copy of the original from the box in his mind.  
  
He'd unwrapped those memories the night he'd finally opened Duo's secret files and found his own deep, blue eyes staring back at him. For a while, he'd thought he was back in the war, when the reek of burning hydraulics and grinding metal had closed his throat and ripped his eyes just that same way. But it had been neither of those things. And even they could not have explained why his face was wet. He'd almost called Duo then, but something had stopped him. Over the following weeks and months the memories had found others he'd thought he'd forgotten. Some good, some bad. But even the bad memories had their good parts -- now. He'd finally understood that Duo wasn't ready for him anymore than he was ready for Duo.  
  
He couldn't do anything for Duo then, but he'd known what he had to do. Just as mastering Zero had showed him the path to the end of the first war, mastering his memories showed him the path to the end of his oldest war -- his war with himself. The soldier rested lightly on his shoulders now. He believed there was a chance he could be human. He believed what Duo had written and drawn for him -- was it only four years ago?  
  
He walked to the office and checked the roster for the Ireland run. Good. Harris hated flying over water. He'd trade in a heartbeat. Richleau, the copilot, was a newbie suckup. The boy would look the other way when Heero stowed his motorcycle in the hold. _Hell, he'd probably kiss my ass just to say he'd been copilot to the great Heero Yuy._ He could just hear the boy's fake French accent now. It made him ill. He'd dump the controls to the boy, let him get a few hours on his log. That should keep him busy enough that Heero wouldn't have to endure much of his inane conversation.  
  
He called Harris, then the Dublin office. He told the receptionist what he wanted and she offered to take care of it for him. She knew just the place and it gave her an excuse to go shopping after work today. He'd accepted, thanking her. It would save him time tomorrow.  
  
_Time to go to bed,_ he thought. For some reason he never thought of his apartment as home. As he walked out to the parking lot and the waiting motorcycle, his lips twitched into a faint smile. He still "forgot" to file flight plans every two or three months...  
  
+  
  
Duo sat, knees to chest, waiting. He had delivered the second half of his kick to the Sligo office that morning, wearing his uniform and making lots of noise at the receptionist about being sure to give it to "Captain Heero Yuy -- H-e-e-r-o Y-u-y -- that's Heero Yuy", just as soon as he got in from his flight. He'd told her the flight and the ETA at least three times. The receptionist wouldn't forget him any time soon.  
  
Heero was over two hours late. _It isn't like him to be late. He isn't coming. Damn that bastard. He really doesn't care about me. Boysdon'tcry. That's a lie! A damn lie!_ Duo's head fell to his knees and he wept. He almost didn't hear it until it was too late.  
  
+  
  
"Duo? ... Duo, I'm here." _Why? Why here in the middle of nowhere in Ireland?_  
  
He'd delayed the flight from Dublin to Sligo, telling Richleau the ILS was acting up and leaving the boy to supervise repairs while he took care of his business in Dublin. When the receptionist in Sligo gave him the second note he was already late. _Damn, Duo, you should have given me more time._ After leaving the main road, he'd raced his motorcycle along a punishing, ever-narrowing country lane for an hour. He'd stopped when he reached Duo's motorcycle -- who else would have a black bike with Preventers logos on it this far out? He'd walked the last three miles of the map into the forest until he'd reached this clearing. He looked at his watch. The GPS readout said he was in the right place, though Duo's coordinates covered half a hectare. He didn't need to see the chronograph to know he was two and a half hours late.  
  
"Duo?" Where was he? Maybe he'd guessed wrong. "If this is a trick Duo..." The soldier leaped on the opportunity and clung to him like skin. "I _will_   kill you." The soldier was afraid. He sensed Death lurking nearby. Heero could smell the fear and pushed him away.  
  
"Heero!" Faint in the distance. Duo's voice. Crunching underbrush. The sounds getting louder. Heero turned to face the source of the noise. He wasn't prepared for the flying tackle. They crashed to the ground in a tangle of limbs and braid, Heero flat on his back. He was glad the soldier had lost the battle about the gun back at the bike, otherwise the landing might have been painful.  
  
"Hn. Are you trying to break my ribs?"  
  
"Uh, no," but Duo relaxed his hold, pulling back to look him in the face. Heero saw the look, and connected it with a word he'd heard but never understood before now -- joy. He didn't understand how that fit with the tear-tracks Duo hadn't quite wiped away, but he knew that was the right word.  
  
Duo took his own hope from Heero's faint smile. "I, um, thought you weren't coming."  
  
_That explains the tears._ "I'm sorry Duo."  
  
"Why were you so late?"  
  
"Delays in Dublin."  
  
Duo's brow wrinkled, doubtful. But reading Heero's face had always been a challenge, and now all the old, familiar clues failed him in the cloud-wisped starlight. "Well, uh, c'mon anyway. There's still time." He disentangled himself and stood, offering Heero a hand. Still the green tank top under an old green denim jacket and over dark blue jeans. "Huh! Shades of Spandex Boy." He winced as he heard it. The old taunt was not what he wanted.  
  
"And you, Shinigami?"  
  
As Heero stood, Duo looked and realized he'd traded his uniform for black jeans and black button-up, only half buttoned, over a white T-shirt. "Old, bad habits, I guess," he frowned.  
  
Heero removed a stray leaf from inside his jacket, surprised to find Duo was a good six centimeters taller than him, then ordered, "Lead," evoking a better memory.  
  
Duo held out his hand. His smile returned when Heero took it.  
  
They walked east up a steep, rocky incline, the night sounds of the forest breathing life all around them. Duo finally broke their silence. "Don't you want to know where we are?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Then why don't you ask?"  
  
"If I wait long enough you'll tell me without--." Heero stopped walking. He didn't want to fall into the well-rehearsed maneuvers of the war they had waged against themselves for far too long. That wasn’t why he'd come. Duo had left "Uh" and "Um" in the clearing. He knew he should leave the soldier there too. It was hard, though. The soldier was afraid to be left behind. Heero gave him no choice. He would face this encounter with Duo alone.  
  
The night seemed different. Brighter. More alive. If he'd understood the word, he might have said "magical". "Where are we, Duo?" he asked as he took a step and they resumed their walk. He thought he knew, but Duo wanted to tell him.  
  
"Sleuth Wood." Silence, then, "You'd guessed."  
  
"Just now."  
  
They walked for another twelve and a half minutes. Heero hadn't known the internal clock wasn't part of the soldier. They came to a rock-strewn drop-off overlooking a lake.  
  
"Why are we here?" He knew, but Duo wanted -- needed -- to tell him that too.  
  
Minutes passed. He looked at Duo, but his friend stared out to the cloud-hid east, waiting. _Friend_. The word thrummed with possibilities. _When did I stop thinking of Duo as a "boy"? Were either of us ever boys?_ He brushed aside the darker memory and waited.  
   
The clouds broke before a distant wind, revealing the full moon, white and grey above them. The moonlight laid its path across the sky and the trees and the sand and the lake to rest in front of them. Heero's breath caught in his throat. He hadn't expected that. "You couldn't have planned that."  
  
"I took a chance," Duo whispered, awed by the magic he had wrought. "Heero, I lo--"  
  
"Shut up, Duo." He'd been waiting for it, but his words carried more force than he'd intended. Duo's hand writhed in a futile attempt to break his grip. "You talk in your sleep," he said, softer, a passing remark, but Duo knew he never said anything in passing.  
  
"What did I--" Duo was suddenly still. Wary, Heero thought.  
  
"Especially when you're having nightmares about your childhood." He met the violet eyes and saw this was going to be harder than he'd thought, but he'd learned that birth is painful. "Especially when you've been badly beaten and you're sharing an too-small bed with me."  
  
Duo closed his eyes, waiting for the hammer.  
  
"... and you want me so bad it hurts, but you're afraid to tell me you love me because everyone you love dies."  
__  
Oh, damn, damn, DAMN your mouth Duo. You can't even keep it shut when you're asleep. Damn, God, why did you curse me so? Why? Why does my damn mouth always have to go off at the wrong time? He felt the tears coming back. _Damn! Boysdon'tcry. Boysdon'tcry! LIAR!_  
  
"Heero," voice shuddering. "I'm sorry. I--"  
  
"Shut up, Duo."  
  
Gentle this time. Duo's eyes opened to find a moonlit smile only he would recognize as a smile.  
  
"I came when you asked." _Ah, there's joy again._ Heero liked seeing joy.  
   
Duo didn't realize he'd stopped breathing until his lungs burned and his knees buckled, Heero caught him and sat him down, then sat behind him and pulled him close against his chest.  
  
They talked about the wars and the nightmares and the good times they hadn't known were good until now. Heero played with Duo's braid as clouds hid and revealed the moon and Duo leaned against him, savoring the whiff of cordite in the air. Heero's scent. Some things never changed. Sometimes that was good.  
  
Silence fell between them and Heero felt Duo draw breath to speak. Again, he'd been waiting for it. "Don't say it if you're afraid," Heero said, interrupting Duo before he'd started. He looked over Duo's shoulder at the soft hair in his hands. "I'm not sure I can say it yet. I don't know if I understand--"  
  
"I love you, Heero." There. "Aishiteru." He'd said it. No fear. No doubt. No reservation. He breathed deep, filling his lungs with the intoxicating fragrance of Heero and the moonlight and laughed. "I want to be with you. Friend, lover, drinking buddy, whatever you'll accept." He laughed again when he realized what he'd said. _Damn mouth going off again._ But he'd said it and they were both still alive. _Feelings are better said than ignored._ Wasn't that was the lesson he'd set in motion for Heero? "Damn. I was so sure I was going to help you come out of your shell. And now--"  
  
Heero laughed. Not the horrible laugh from the war, but a soft, staccato chuckle. Duo was so surprised he almost forgot to memorize the sound, adding it to his catalog of Heero.  
  
"You did. But what did Sister Helen say about helping others?"  
  
Duo remembered. "Helping others we help ourselves." _And I didn't even know I needed help._ "How much did I say in my sleep?"  
  
"Not enough to fix me then, but too much for me to forget." Heero pushed a flat, square box into Duo's hands. "The other reason I was late. Something else you said."  
  
Duo opened the box. Feathered wings worked in silver spread the width of both his hands. Heero turned them over, showing him the clasp that would hold them in his hair and reading the words he'd had engraved. "Wings for an Angel," whispering into Duo's ear. Then he added, "Aishi--." The word caught in his throat. He couldn't finish it. He felt tears on his face. _Damn!_  
  
"I'm sorry," Heero said. Duo heard the tears. "I thought--" He had thought that finally leaving the soldier behind would be the answer, but trying to say it, he knew he still didn't understand that word and he wouldn't lie to Duo -- not about something so important to him -- to them both. He pulled Duo tighter against him and laid a cheek on the chestnut head, savoring the familiar scent of cinnamon, afraid he would never be able to say that word.  
   
"Give it time," Duo said. He reached back to touch the wetness on Heero's face, certain which ending they would find. "We'll wait together. As long as it takes." The confidence in Duo's voice calmed Heero's fear. They sat, watching the moon and stars until the sun banished the night shadows and left the Earth with a last morning kiss and the breath of a new day.  
  
A different kiss, a different breath moved cool against Duo's ear. "Do you want to move to Belgium or should I transfer to Japan?"  
  
"Japan, please. The memories are better there."  
  
Heero nodded and took the wings from Duo's hands and put them on the braid, between his shoulders where an angel's wings should be, then stood and pulled him up. "Let's go. I'll arrange the transfer, you find me an apartment."  
  
"You can stay with me." Duo paused at the look in Heero's eyes. "You're right. But the apartment next door is empty."  
  
"Ryoukai."


	15. Ending 2, Part 2 - Sub Rosa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> by LoneWolf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note from Dacia, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [A Little Piece of Gundam Wing](https://fanlore.org/wiki/A_Little_Piece_Of_Gundam_Wing), which closed in 2017. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after July 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [a little piece of gundam wing collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/alittlepieceofgundamwing/profile).

_mid-June AC199 - late April AC200_

(Sometimes soldiers and fools find themselves.)  
  
The first three months went well. They revisited the spot in the park where Duo had helped Heero with the sonnet, ate familiar food at familiar places, even went by the old school and played a pickup basketball game with the kids there -- two on five. They won, of course.  
  
Then they argued for a week. It was something stupid, that was all Duo could remember now. They got over it and were friends again.  
  
One night, two months later, after a little too much of Duo's favorite sake, Heero grabbed him and kissed him. They kissed again and then kissed again deeply. His hands were unbuttoning Heero's shirt, then rushing ahead of themselves to feel his chest when Duo's foggy brain remembered something was wrong. He pushed Heero away.  
  
"Say it."  
  
"Aishi--" Heero choked. "Damn, Duo. Don't be such an asshole about it."  
  
He meant to say, "I'll wait." He said, "No! And don't try to seduce me again, you bastard!"  
  
A cold light he hadn't seen in years filled Heero's eyes, then Heero turned and stalked out of the apartment, slamming the door so hard Duo thought he'd broken the frame. A few seconds later he heard Heero's door slam. Then he heard a soft sound through the wall his apartment shared with Heero's bedroom. He listened to it for ten minutes before he realized Heero was crying.  
  
The next day they both apologized and spent the evening on the roof watching the city lights below them, Duo leaning against Heero's chest and wondering if it really mattered whether he said it or not. Duo knew it mattered to Heero, even if Heero forgot that sometimes. His words had been the wrong words, but he had done the right thing.  
  
Everything was fine again. Their arguments were minor and quickly resolved for the next four months. Then their schedules went to Hell.  
  
Between Heero's flight load as his company opened three new hubs along the China coast and Duo's assignments as a small group of Oz leftovers threatened the peace, they had spent maybe an hour together in the last month. Fifty-six minutes arguing about stupid, stupid things, like where to go for dinner or which movie to watch, the other four minutes glaring as one or the other stalked out the door. They hadn't spoken for over a week now. Heero had been right when he insisted they have separate apartments. Duo was wondering if he'd been wrong to suggest they be neighbors.  
  
_No, Duo,_ he told himself. _Sometimes these things take time. I'm just surprised it's taken him this long._  
  
Heero had taken a four-day series of flights through Korea, China, Singapore, the Philippines and Taiwan and before returning to Tokyo. Duo suspected he'd traded assignments with someone else to get away from the daily reminders of their month-long war. Even though they weren't speaking, they could still hear each other through the walls, and each soft sound ripped open the scars again and again and again.  
  
A time to heal?  
  
Maybe. The last week had been Hell for Duo. He imagined it was worse for Heero whose hearing was so much sharper than his.  
  
When he saw Heero's itinerary  -- he still kept tabs on him, even when they were arguing -- he took Thursday an Friday off himself. He spent most of it cleaning the apartment and thinking and deciding they were both idiots to let stupid things come between them like this. It was time to fix things up before they both did something that might permanently damage their relationship.  
  
He scribbled a small sketch of a dinner table and a time and a heart with wings on it and stuck it on Heero's doorknob. When he got back from buying groceries, the note was gone, but Heero's apartment was empty. He called his intern at the office. There had been a strong tailwind out of Taipei. Heero's flight had returned early.  
  
"So, we'll see if he shows," he muttered to himself as he finished arranging the table. Dinner was in the oven. The timer on the oven was set. Everything was ready, except him. _Just over two hours to go -- cutting it close,_ he thought. A forty-five minute shower, an hour brushing out his hair, eight minutes braiding. _Now, where's that hair clasp?_  
  
It was gone. It should have been right there on the dresser, but it was gone. He searched the apartment and racked his memory, but now he couldn't remember when he'd seen it last... and the clock said-- _Damn!_ Two minutes and he still wasn't dressed. _Well, better dressed and without it than the other way around._ He grabbed the clothes of the bed and quickly pulled them on. Brick red T-shirt, dark blue button-up shirt, half-buttoned, loose light-blue jeans, bare feet. He'd been careful to avoid black tonight.  
  
He was standing in front of the mirror, fiddling with the buttons on the shirt, trying to decide whether he should button one more or two more when he heard their old "secret knock" at the door -- one-two-one. "Coming!"  
  
He buttoned one more button, decided it would do, and ran to the door.  
  
"I'm glad you came," he said as he opened the door. "I--"  
  
Heero stood in the hall -- barefoot, snug dark-blue jeans, oversized yellow button-up shirt over skin, untucked, two buttons at both top and bottom unbuttoned. Duo's favorite Heero-over-for-dinner outfit. In his hand was a single red rose.  
  
_He never brought me flowers -- uh, flower -- before._  
  
"I missed you too," Heero said, knowing the words that the sight of him had interrupted. He held out the rose.  
  
"Arigatou," Duo said, taking it and sniffing the sweet scent. _Not as sweet as the scent of cordite, though,_ he thought. "Why are we such bastards to each other? For God's sake, we love each other."  
  
Heero nodded. "Remember, I'm the Perfect Bastard."  
  
Duo laughed. "C'mon in." He grabbed Heero's hand and pulled him in, half to be sure he came in, half because he simply wanted to touch him and feel that cool skin. "Dinner's ready." He closed the door and led Heero to the table. "Made it myself -- Italian." He added the rose to the cherry blossoms in the vase on the table. He would have thrown the cherry blossoms out, giving sole honor to Heero's rose, but he'd chosen the cherry blossoms for the pleasant memory and they complemented each other well.  
  
The good times were back. They, well, mostly Duo, talked during dinner. Heero ate a small second serving of  Duo's vegetable lasagna -- the ultimate compliment to the cook. They lingered in silence over tiramisu and espresso stealing half-secret glances at each other, enjoying their little game. After clearing the table, they adjourned to the living room. Duo poured two fingers of brandy into a snifter for himself. Heero's second cup of espresso was still three-quarters full. Duo added brandy to fill it.  
  
"I'm glad we're not arguing anymore," Duo said as he sat down on the sofa next to Heero. He took a sip of the brandy, watching Heero for the emotions that he loved to catch -- little fish stirring the surface of that glass-smooth face. "Let's promise never to argue again."  
  
"Hn. It would be a lie. Lovers argue. Let's just promise to get over it quicker next time."  
  
"Ryoukai. ... Hey! Who says we're lovers, Perfect Bastard-san?"  
  
Heero smiled his invisible smile. "Your intern for one."  
  
"Naaniiii?? Why that little-- ack!" Heero grabbed him and yanked him close. "I see now. That was just a ruse so you could take advantage of me while I was distracted."  
  
"Shut up, Duo." Another one of their little games. The words had become an endearment months ago.  
  
Duo laid his head on Heero's shoulder, reaching across him to set the brandy on the end table. He sighed. "I'm glad you're back." His eyes strayed back to the table and the flowers.  
  
_Oh God._ "Heero, why did you bring the rose?"  
  
"Hn".  
  
Duo looked up to find deep-blue-water eyes waiting for him. "Heero, why did you bring me the rose?" _Oh God, please._  
  
"Because ..." He paused and took a deep breath. "Because I love you, Duo." Heero smiled. Not the little hidden smile this time. _So this is what joy feels like._ "Aishiteru." He saw the joy in Duo's face, matching his own. "Ai--"  
  
Duo's tongue took advantage of the half-finished word. They kissed, exploring the depths of each other's mouths. Duo had Heero's shirt unbuttoned before they broke, fingers nipping at hard nipples, drawing soft gasps and whimpers from Heero.  
  
Heero gently pushed them apart, panting slightly, then kept them apart as a frustrated Duo tried to close the gap. "Heeerrooooo, I've been waiting--"  
  
"One more thing. Then..." his lips quirked upward, the little smile this time. "Then you can have your way with me." He held out a familiar box.  
  
Duo's eyes grew wide. "Is that?" It was! "My wings!" _So that's where they went._  
  
"I had to fix them."  
  
"Naaniiii?? What was wrong with them?"  
  
Heero turned the hair clasp over. One word in the old inscription had been filled in and changed. "Wings for My Angel," Duo read, grinning. "Yours, huh?"  
  
"Aishiteru. Kimi ga ore no da." Heero's voice sounded as if it were giving an order, but Duo saw the question on Heero's face.  
  
"Ninmu ryoukai!" _Let there be no doubt, koi._ "I'm yours." _And have been all along._ Duo stood, reaching back to clip the wings into his hair, then pivoted, modeling them for Heero. "So what did you decide 'aishiteru' means?" He turned around and found himself drowning in those warm blue eyes. _I'd stay with him forever just to see them like that one more time._  
  
"It means I want to be with you even after the way you've treated me this past month, and you want to be with me even after the way I've treated you."  
  
"To think you struggled with the Romantic poets." Duo grinned and jumped, knocking Heero flat on the couch as he landed on top of him.  
  
"Is this how angels behave?" Heero murmured as Duo nipped a line up his neck to his ear lobe. Duo's hands were busy unbuttoning Heero's jeans.  
  
" _Fallen_ angel, remember?" He took Heero's lips, savoring the taste, and slid his hand under Heero's waistband. Heero moaned into his mouth as Duo squeezed gently. Then louder as Duo's other hand began playing with Heero's nipple.  
  
"Nnnnn. Duo. I never imagined it would -- Aaaaaa -- feel this good."  
  
"Heero no baka. This is just foreplay." Duo laughed, kissing him again, teasing his lips open, their tongues meeting again. "Before I get done with you, koi-mine, you're gonna swear you're in Heaven."  
  
He was right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Sub rosa" means, literally, "under the rose", or idiomatically "in confidence".


	16. Ending 2, Part 3 - Ad Inifinitum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> by LoneWolf   
> \--   
> plot? what plot???

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note from Dacia, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [A Little Piece of Gundam Wing](https://fanlore.org/wiki/A_Little_Piece_Of_Gundam_Wing), which closed in 2017. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after July 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [a little piece of gundam wing collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/alittlepieceofgundamwing/profile).

_Late April AC200_

(Sometimes soldiers and fools insist that the author write them a lemon or they'll drive him nuts.)   
  
Duo woke. _Morning,_ he thought. _God, I feel tired._ After a minute he forced his eyes half-open and looked at the clock. After another minute he had wiped the sleep-crust from his eyes and focussed them and was able to read the clock. "Better make that afternoon," he murmured. "What did I--" His eyes opened wide, suddenly quite awake as he remembered last night. "Damn." But he was alone in bed. Maybe it was just a dream. _A very good, very wet dream,_ he thought as he looked around the room. He spied Heero's clothes on the floor. "Damn!" He smiled faintly, listening, the annoyance at waking alone after last night tempered by the knowledge that there was no way Heero could know. The smile became a frown as he realized the apartment was quiet. Heero wasn't here. "Damn him." Faint sounds from the apartment next door. " _Damn him!_ "   
  
The previously tempered annoyance bloomed into full-blown anger as he stalked out the door of his apartment. Not even bothering to knock on Heero's door, he opened it, stormed in and slammed it behind him. Heero was wearing a pair of _his_ blue silk boxers, putting books in a box. "Damn you, you bastard! Don't you _ever_ fuck me and leave me! When I wake up in the morning I expect to see your face first thing when I open my eyes! And those are my damn boxers!" he ranted as Heero walked over to him. "Give them back! What the Hell do you think yo-- mmph!!"   
  
Heero stood on tip-toes, kissing Duo. His tongue pushed into Duo's mouth, silencing the protests. His hands slid under Duo's hair and down his back, blazing icy trails over the soft skin.   
  
Duo jerked away. "And don't try to-- uh." He looked down over his shoulder as he felt Heero's hands cupping his bare buttocks, threatening to lift him off the ground. _Ohshit. Hope the neighbors weren't watching._  
  
"I'm sorry. I didn't know." One of Heero's hands left his butt and went to Heero's waistband. "And I think you did most of the fucking last night. Not that I didn't enjoy it." The other hand slid a finger into his crack, brushing teasingly against him. "You are so tempting when you're naked and angry."   
  
"Uh, what are you..." He felt the boxers slide past him to the floor. "Uh, you can keep-- mmph." Another deep kiss. "Oh!" He grinned as Heero's hand returned to his butt, this time lifting him. "Trying to make up for leaving me now?" He wrapped his legs around Heero's waist as Heero started for the bedroom. "It's gonna take a lot more than your tongue down my throat to make up for that mistake, Perfect Bastard-san."   
  
"Omae o korosu." Heero smirked.   
  
"I think I'm going to enjoy this particular death," Duo muttered over Heero's shoulder.   
  
Heero lowered them to the bed and put a pillow under Duo's head and shoulders. "So you can watch me kill you." He slid four more pillows under Duo's butt, raising him off the bed, then pulled Duo's legs from around him and turned into a six-nine position.   
  
"Hey, what're you doing? I thought you were gonna... OH!" He gasped as he felt Heero's tongue probing his rim. Now he understood. He folded the pillow under his head so he could reach Heero and spread his mouth over the throbbing flesh before him, drenching it with his saliva. He threw in a few nibbles and tongue-lashes for good measure. The soft "nnnn" and "aaaa" sounds below him -- or was that above him -- it didn't matter -- they told him Heero was enjoying this too. He was curious, though, why Heero had propped his ass up so high.   
  
He felt a finger pressing against him, slowly stretching him. He relaxed, letting it in, enjoying the gentle massage it gave the rings of guarding muscle. Soon a second. Then a third, spreading and stretching him, followed by a fourth. _Damn!_ Duo thought. _Is he gonna try to fist me with just spit?_ He decided it was just inexperience and pulled away from Heero's erection. "Uh, Heero two or three is usually enough." And he was ready for more than just fingers. Last night had been such a blur that he couldn't remember just how many times which of them had done what to the other or quite what it had felt like. Except that it had been the best, most intimate lovemaking he'd ever experienced -- not that he had that much to compare it to. This time, he was going to memorize every sensation.   
  
Heero turned and quickly repositioned, standing on his knees to reach Duo, pressing gently but insistently.   
  
Duo relaxed himself and smiled at the look of surprise on Heero's face as Heero sank deep into him. "Gotcha, koi." Heero looked at him, realizing Duo had caught him off guard, and pulled out slowly, a silky steel rod of flesh dragging against the sensitive nerve endings, drawing a shuddering "Ohhh!" from Duo's lips. Then, as Heero pulled all the way out. "Hey..."   
  
Again the gentle pressure. Again Duo relaxed. This time Duo felt velvet skin and a soft thump as Heero's balls bounced against his ass. Heero had been expecting it this time and started the slow withdrawal again. "Damn it, Heero, quit playing around and fuck me stupid."   
  
"Ninmu ryoukai." A playful glitter in the cool blue eyes and the faint smirk warned him. Heero's hands closed on Duo's hips.   
  
The next thrust was neither slow nor particularly gentle, but Duo was ready for it, had been waiting for it. A fast withdrawal, again all the way, and another thrust, the rings of muscle popping softly as they opened again. "Ohhh! I like that!" He caught Heero's eyes and they watched each other as Heero plunged into him, drawing gasps and groans of pleasure from him. Duo shifted slightly and concentrated, tightening himself around Heero. He grinned as he watched Heero's eyes widen and heard a soft, whining "Hnnnn" escape Heero's lips. "Gotcha again." Heero said nothing, but he wasn't silent any longer.   
  
Duo reached for his own hardness, but Heero batted his hand away and smirked. "Sore wa ore no da!" He paused, most of the way out of Duo, and lowered his head, keeping his eyes locked on Duo's.   
  
_Oh God, he isn't going to try... Oh God! He is! ... I never knew he was that flexible._ "Mmmmm!" he sighed as Heero's tongue touched him, probing under the foreskin. Heero's lips were holding Duo in his mouth, but not moving. Then Heero's pelvis rocked forward slowly.   
  
"OH GOD! HEERO!" The shift in position had Heero driving directly against the most sensitive spot inside him, all the way in and all the way out. "OH!" Duo shouted, "Yes! Heero!" struggling to keep his eyes open and locked with Heero's, as Heero built back up to the steady rhythm of in and out.   
  
Heero's mouth still only held him as he shouted, though he could feel the soft vibrations as Heero moaned against him. _Why doesn't he do something more?_ He wanted Heero to suck him, but he couldn't form the words. His throat was too busy with other sounds. Then he felt it rising above the overwhelming sensations coming from his ass where Heero was pounding him into pleasure -- and saw the smirk on the mouth wrapped around the head of his pulsing cock as his eyes revealed it.   
  
"Heero! I'm-- " His throat seized up as heavy white liquid shot out of him and into Heero's mouth, feeling Heero's tongue moving against that sensitive spot underneath the head now, pushing him deep into the growing fog of sensation. He felt his ass tighten hard around Heero as ecstasy exploded from two places at once, raging through him, striking him speechless except for a long, drawn out cry of primal pleasure. Heero slid into him twice more with those long, ring-popping strokes, driving him even farther into the haze. Then a pause and he watched Heero's face with languid, half-seeing eyes as Heero breathed a soft, "Haa' haa' nn' aaa' aaaaannnn", repeating over and over as Heero poured himself into him. It was a beautiful face. No ice. Nothing but the hot, raw pleasure to shape it. He struggled to memorize it, then gave up as another cloud of fallout spread across his body. He would get to see it again, he was sure.   
  
They remained together, unmoving, watching each other for long minutes in the hazy afterglow, then Heero sucked the last drops out of Duo and raised his head. He wrapped Duo's weak legs around his waist, pulled the pillows away, lowered them to the mattress, and slowly stretched up to Duo's face, keeping himself inside Duo the whole time. Heero stared at him, waiting. "Go-- mmph!" Heero kissed him, his tongue dropping into Duo's open mouth, offering back what he'd taken from Duo.   
  
Duo shuddered, tasting himself in Heero's mouth, on Heero's tongue. A small echo of the earlier pleasure wracked his body from mouth to ass.   
  
The last drop of Duo's essence dissolved and Heero's lips moved away from him, an inquisitive smirk on his face.   
  
"God, Heero. I feel like I've been shot." He giggled when he heard the pun in what he'd said. "You made me come without ever sucking. Damn you're a fast learner." He looked at Heero with false suspicion. "Uh, you haven't been practicing with someone else have you?"   
  
"Iie, baka!" Blue eyes glinted with a hint of anger at the suggestion. "Aishiteru! Ore wa kimi no da zo!"   
  
"Yep. You're mine," Duo agreed. "And God help anyone who tries to take you away from me because Shinigami will hunt them down and drag them to Hell." The hint of the old dark light in his eyes told Heero that he meant it.   
  
For some reason Heero couldn't quite identify, it made him happy.   
  
They lay there, breathing heavy, floating in the tang of cordite and cinnamon and sweat and sex that drifted off of their bodies, Duo feeling Heero. "Mmm. I like you inside me after, koi." Heero pressed his cheek against Duo's, skin not as cold as it had been before. They lay together, enjoying each other's presence.  
  
Then Duo remembered something. "Hey, what's with the boxes?" He murmured, nuzzling Heero's ear.   
  
"Ore ga hikkosu." Heero's teeth closed gently on his ear lobe.   
  
"Naaniiii? Moving? I thought--"   
  
"Baka. Kimi no apaato, ne?" Heero mouthed his neck, sucking gently. "Aishiteru." He pushed up on his elbows, looking down at Duo.   
  
"Oh." Duo smiled. "As long as you don't mind sharing the bed. Um, you want a hand with-- Uh, Heero. What's going on -- Heero -- mmm -- _Damn_ you recover fast."   
  
Heero smirked and began moving slowly over him.   
  
_I think I'm gonna learn like that smirk._ "I thought it was just broken legs and -- mmmm -- and explosions and stuff. Ohh!"   
  
"Baka! That was an explosion, ne? You always suspected I was enhanced, ne?" Heero rocked back on his elbows again, then slowly forward.   
  
Duo grinned his silly grin. "Hell yes -- mmmm. Blow me up again."   
  
"Nnnnnnn. You still want me to fuck you stupid, ne?" Again the warning look in Heero's eyes, the smirk.   
  
"Hai!" Then Duo remembered the "ninmu ryoukai" earlier. "Uh, wait a min-- mmmm." Heero wasn't waiting. "How enhanced? Ohhh! YES!"   
  
"I don't kno-- Aaa." Heero gasped as Duo's hands closed on his chest, massaging the muscle and gently rubbing palms against the nipples. "Let's find out."   
  
"Ryouk-- AAAAAI! God, that feels good. Mmmm. Why do I think I'm gonna -- hnnn -- have trouble walking tomorrow? Aaaah!"   
  
+  
  
The only things they moved that day were the bed and each other.   
  
+  
  
When Duo woke the next morning, the first things that greeted him were the scent of cordite, the warm blue eyes of his lover, a smile only he knew was a smile, and the word, "Aishiteru," on Heero's lips.   
  
end


End file.
